Aristotle Metaphysics I Xi Sachs PDF

Aristotle's
Metaphysics
a new translation by
Joe Sachs
Qreen Lion Press

Contents
Introduction by Joe Sachs

Part I: Ways of Writing and Ways of Being
The Ordering and Content of Aristotle's Inquiry xi
Part II: Ways of Interpreting
The Distorting Lenses ofModern Philosophy and Commentary xxvi
Part III: Ways of Translating
How and Why this Version Differs from Others xxxiv
Part IV: Notes on this Volume xli
Part V: Acknowledgments xlii
Outline of the Argument of the Metaphysics xliii
Glossary
Part I: Greek Glossary xlvii
Part II: English Glossary xlix
Aristotle's Metaphysics
Book I (Book A): Wisdom 1
Book II (Book a): Inquiry 29
Book III (Book B): Impasses 35
Book IV (Book f): The Study of Being as Being 53
Book V (Book 11): Things Meant in More than One Way 77
Book VI (Book E): Primary and Derivative Kinds of Being 109
Book VII ( Book Z): Thinghood and Form 117
Book VIII (Book H): Form and Being-at-Work 155
Book IX (Book 8): Potency and Being-at-Work 167
Book X (Book I): Wholeness 185
Book XI (Book K): Order 205
Book XII (Book A): The Cause of Being 231
Book XIII (Book M): The Being of Intelligible Things 253
Book XIV (Book N): Intelligible Things as Causes 281
Bibliography:· suggested Reading 299

Index 301
A Brief Outline of the
Argument of the Metaphysics
This summary ignores the complexity within each book of the
Metaphysics in order to highlight the broad outlines of the work in
its wholeness. The fourteen books group themselves into five main
sections.
Preliminary Inquiries
Book I All those who have sought wisdom have tried to uncover the
ultimate causes of things. Most have produced materialist accounts,
which necessarily show themselves to be inadequate, but all attempts
to describe a source of motion or a cause for the sake of which things
are as they are have been rudimentary and explain nothing either.
Book II Any sequence of causes that succeeds in explaining anything

cannot be infinite, but must lead to the primary instance of whatever
it explains.
Book III A successful account of the causes of things must resolve a

number of impasses. Principally, if a cause is to be knowable it must
be a universal, and therefore cannot act in the way particulars do or
have being in the way perceptible things do.
Book IV If there is a single knowledge that encompasses all things

it must incorporate a knowledge of the first principles of knowledge
itself, and especially of the law of contradiction. But that law governs
speech and thought because it first of all governs beings. To be at all is
to be something, to have a determinate nature and belong to a kind.
Book V Causal structures are reflected in the arrays of meanings that

belong to words. When ambiguities are laid out, the complexities of
causal relations may be discovered rather than imposed from some
theoretical pattern.
The Central Argument
Book VI Being is meant in more than one way, but insofar as it refers
to truth in thinking, or to anything that something is incidentally, its
meaning is derivative from and dependent upon a more primary sense.
xliv A Brief Outline of the Argument
But being in its own right still belongs to things in a number of distinct
ways, with which the study of being as being must begin.
Book VII Among the ways being is meant in its own right, thinghood
is primary, since the other seven ways all signify being some attribute
. of an independent thing. Since the thing underlies its attributes, thing
hood seems to be material, but material underlies form in a different
way. The thinghood of a thing is disclosed not by subtracting its at
tributes, but by looking to the form that determines its wholeness as a
separate being, standing on its own. The form is what it is for the thing
to be, what it keeps on being in order to be at all, and as such belongs
only to living things and to the cosmos as a whole. The articulation
in speech of what it is for something to be defines it only as a uni
versal, incapable of being separate or acting as a cause. As the cause
of thinghood, form must be understood as having being prior to and
independent of perceptible things. Being as being has been narrowed
down to thinghood and then to the being of forms.
Book VIII Form is not an arrangement of parts but a being-at-work

within material, and the unity in the form itself results from a being
at-work within it. Being as being is being-at-work.
Book IX The potencies in things are not mere possibilities, passive

and externally related to something at work upon them, but inherent
strivings that emerge into being-at-work in response to a cause in
which that same being-at-work is already present. The perpetual
renewal of being-at-work in living things and in the cosmos depends
upon an everlasting and indestructible being, always at work. As the
source of identity for whatever is, this everlasting being-at-work is the
good of all things, and contact with it by the act of contemplation is
the primary meaning of truth.
Bridge to the Conclusion of the Inquiry
Book X Wholeness in its most complete form belongs to that of

which the thinking is one, and hence the cause of such wholeness
rests ultimately upon an act of thinking.
Book XI There is much evidence of disorder among things. In the

course of the Metaphysics and Physics, all such apparent disorder has
been traced back to some sort of order on which it depends. Hence
that order in turn must have some source.
A Brief Outline of the Argument xlv
Conclusion: the Source of Being
Book XII All things depend upon a being that is without material and
always at work. As an act of thinking that never goes out of itself, it is
the motionless cause of the circular motion of the cosmos; as the self
thought content of thinking it comprises the forms of all the beings
that inhabit the cosmos.
Final Caution:
Misguided Approaches to the Source of Being
Book XIII Mathematical things are not sources of anything, either

separate from or within perceptible things, and the forms are not
mathematical things or universals.
Book. XIV The forms cannot exert causality as elements, by any

analogy to generation, or as numerical ratios.
Glossary
The third part of the introduction discusses the ways in which this
translation departs from others. This glossary sets forth the primary
translation choices that constitute that departure.
Its first section lists, alphabetically, the Greek words that are dis
cussed below, with the English translations that have, for the most
part, been used for them here. In many cases, the translation chosen
is followed in parentheses by the standard translation that is not used
here. Some of these rejected translations, such as perplexity or formula,
convey false impressions by wrong emphases; others, such as habit or
speculation, are cognate to good Latin translations of the Greek, but
have entirely different meanings in English; still others, such as sub
stance or induction, are mistakes made long ago that have hardened
into authority.
The second section of the glossary discusses all these words at some
length, with reference to many of Aristotle' s writings. The glossary
thus supplements the introduction, and provides a way for you to
orient yourself to Aristotle's primary vocabulary as a whole.
I. Greek Glossary
0"
a�9TJO"Lt; . . . sense perception (not sensation)
'
atTta .. cause
,
O:Uoi.watc; . . . alteration
ava'YELV . . . lead back (not reduce)

aVT($aO"Lt; . . contradictory
.
a1Topi.a . . . impasse (not perplexity, difficulty)

.
apETTJ . vrrtue
, '
. .
dpt9!16c; . . . number
apx{J . . . source (not principle)

',
«VTO!l«TOV .. . Chance
xlviii Glossary
acjlaLpEUL<;; . . . abstraction
yevo<;; . . . genus
'
BvvaJ.LL<;; . . . potency (not potentiality)

el8o<;; . . . form
evaVTLOV . . . contrary
evepyeLa . . . being-at-work (not actuality)
EVTEAEXELa . . . being-at-work-staying-itself (not actuality)
e �L<;; . . . active state
etraywy� . . . example (not induction)

�PEJ.I.La . . . rest
eewpi.a . . . contemplation (not speculation)
i.Bea . . . form
Kae6>.ov . . . universal
KaTa avJ.LPEPTJKck . . . incidental (not accidental)
KL VTJU L<;; . . . motion
KLvovv . . . mover (not efficient cause)
>.6yo<;; . . . articulation (not formula)
J.I.ETaPo>.� . . See motion .
J.Lopcjl� . . . form
vvv . . . now (not moment)

OJ.I.WVVJ.I.La . . . ambiguity (not equivocation)
ovai.a . . . thinghood (not substance)
TTOLOV . • . of-this-kind (not quality)
troa6v . . . so much (not quantity)
trpWTTJ, trpwTov . . . primary
trpWTTJ cjiL>.oaocjli.a . . . first philosophy
aTaa L<;; . . . rest
aTEPTJUL<;; . . . deprivation (not privation)
Ta J.I.ETa Ta cjlvaLKa . . . See first philosophy.
II. English Glossary xlix
TEAO<;; • • . end
TEXVT] . . . art
TL ecrn . . . See what it is for something to be
TL �v elvat . what it is for something to be (not essence)
. .
T68e n . . . this (not this somewhat)

TOTTO<;; • . . place
V AT] . . . material (not matter)
VTTOKeL!iEVOV . . • underlying thing
<J>ucrt<:: . . nature .
XWPLO"TOV . . separate .
II. English Glossary

This is a slightly revised version of the glossary that appears with
the translation of the Physics, based upon those passages in which
Aristotle explains and clarifies hls own usage. Bekker page numbers
from 184 to 267 refer to the Physics; those from 980 to 1093 are in the
Metaphysics.
abstraction (ci<J>al.pecrt<;; aphairesis) The act by which mathematical
things, and they alone, are artificially produced by taking away in
thought the perceptible attributes of perceptible things (1061a 29-
1061b 4). Within mathematics, this is the ordinary word for subtraction.
It is never used by Aristotle to apply to the way general ideas arise
out of sensible particulars, as Thomas Aquinas and others claim. Its
special philosophic sense is not Aristotle's invention; as often as not
he speaks of "so-called abstractions." He uses the word in this special
sense rarely, only in reference to the origin of mathematical ideas, and
not always then; in the Physics he says instead that mathematicians
separate what is not itself separate (193b 31-35).
active state (e�L<;; hexis) Any condition that a thing has by its own
effort of holding on in a certain way. Examples are knowledge and all
virtues or excellences, including those of the body such as health. Of
Glossary
four general kinds of qualities described in Categories Book VIII, these

are the most stable.
alteration (aXXoi.wcrL<; alloiosis) Change of quality or sort, dependent

upon but not reducible to change of place. One of the four main kinds
of motion. Some things that we would consider qualities are "present
in"the thinghood of a being, making it what it is, rather than attributes
of it; change of any of them would be change of thinghood, rather than
alteration of a persisting being (226a 27-29). The acquisition of virtue
is just such a change of thinghood, not an alteration but the completion
of the coming-into-being of a human being, just as putting on the roof
completes the coming-into-being of a house (246a 17-246b 3). For a
different reason, learning is not an alteration of the learner; knowing
is a being-at-work that is always going on in us, unnoticed until we
settle into it out of distraction and disorder (247b 17-18).
ambiguity (O!LWVV!LLa homonymia) The presence of more than one

meaning in a word, sometimes by chance (as in "bark"), but more
often by analogy or by derivation from one primary meaning. (See
especially Metaphysics Book IV, Ch. 2.) A city or society is called healthy
by analogy to an animal, a diet by derivation. Derived meanings may
have many kinds of relation to the primary meaning, but all point to
one thing (pros hen). Arrays of this truthful kind of ambiguity reflect
causal structures in the world. Book V of the Metaphysics, m istakenly
called a dictionary, is called by Aristotle the book about things meant
in more than one way. Thomas Aquinas uses the word analogy to cover
all non-chance ambiguity, but it makes a great difference to Aristotle
that the meanings of good are unified only by analogy, while those of
being point to one primary instance.
art (TEXVTJ techni) The know-how that permits any kind of skilled
making, as by a carpenter or sculptor, or producing, as by a doctor
or legislator. The artisan is not "creative"; in nature the form of the
thing that comes into being is at work upon it directly, while in art the
form is at work upon the soul of the artisan (1032b 14-15). Aristotle
agrees with sculptors that Hermes is in the marble, and let out by
taking away what obscures his image. Aristotle concludes that the
origin of motion that produces statues is the art of sculpture, and
incidentally the particular sculptor (195a 3-8). The artwork or artifact
has no material cause proper to itself (192b 18-19 -though a saw needs
to be of a certain kind of material to hold an edge); in general the artisan
I I . English Glossary li
uses the potencies of natural materials to counteract one another. The

surface of a table strains to fall to earth, but the legs prevent it, while
the legs strain to fall over and the tabletop prevents it, and similarly
with the roof and walls of a house.
articulation (AO'YOc;; logos) The gathering in speech of the intelligible

structure of anything, a combination of analysis and synthesis. A defi
nition is one kind of articulation, but there are many others, including
a ratio, a pattern, or reason itself. It can refer to anything that can be
put into words-an argument, an account, a discourse, a story-or to
the words into which anything is put-a word, a sentence, a chapter,
a book. Translating logos as formula is misleading, since it has no im
plication of being the briefest, or any rigid, formulation of anything.
In some translations, the word formula becomes a formula for a rich
and varied idea; the word articulation is a slight improvement, used
here wherever nothing better was appropriate.
being-at-work (evep'YELa energeia) An ultimate idea, not definable by

anything deeper or clearer, but grasped directly from examples, at a
glance or by analogy (1048 a 38-39). Activity comes to sight first as
motion, but Aristotle's central thought is that all being is being-at
work, and that anything inert would cease to be. The primary sense
of the word belongs to activities that are not motions; examples of
these are seeing, knowing, and happiness, each understood as an
ongoing state that is complete at every instant, but the human being
that can experience them is similarly a being-at-work, constituted by
metabolism. Since the end and completion of any genuine being is its
being-at-work, the meaning of the word converges (1047a 30-31, 1050a
22-24) with that of the following:
being-at-work-staying-itself (EVTEAEXELa entelecheia) A fusion of the

idea of completeness with that of continuity or persistence. Aristotle
invents the word by combining evTeXec;; enteles (complete, full-grown)
with EXELV echein ( E�Lc;; hexis, to be a certain way by the continuing
=
effort of holding on in that condition), while at the same time punning

on €v8e>..e xeta endelecheia (persistence) by inserting TeXoc;; telos (com
pletion). This is a three-ring circus of a word, at the heart of everything
in Aristotle's thinking, including the definition of motion. Its power
to carry meaning depends on the working together of all the things
Aristotle has packed into it. Some commentators explain it as mean
ing being-at-an-end, which misses the point entirely, and it is usually
Iii Glossary
translated as " actuality," a word that refers to anything, however triv

ial, incidental, transient, or static, that happens to be the case, so that
everything is lost in translation, just at the spot where understanding
could begin.
cause (aiT(a aitia) The source of responsibility for anything. It thus

differs in two ways from its prevalent current sense: in always being a
source (1013a 1 7), rather the nearest agent or instrument that leads to
a result, and in referring more to responsibility for a thing's being as it
is than for its doing what it does. To understand anything is to know
its ca.use, and such an understanding is always incomplete without
an account of all four kinds of responsibility: as material, as form, as
origin of motion, and as end or completion (Physics Bk. II, Ch. 3).
chance (auTOjlaTov automaton or TlJXTJ tuchi!) Any incidental cause.

At 197b 29-30, Aristotle invents the etymology Til auTo jlaTlJV to
auto maten, that which is itself in vain (but produces some other
result) . Chance events or products always come from the interference
of two or more lines of causes; those prior causes always tend toward
natural ends or human purposes. Chance is thus derivative from the
"teleological" structure of the world, and is the reason nature acts for
the most part, rather than always, in the same way. In the Physics,
chance that is peculiarly relevant to a human being is distinguished as
fortune or luck under the name tuche, but in the Metaphysics the two
senses are merged.
contradictory (<ivT(<j>aaLc; antiphasis) One of a pair of opposites which

can have nothing between them, such as white and not-white.
contrary (evavT(ov enantion) One of a pair of opposites which can have

something between them, such as white and black; but the opposition
need not be extreme, and could be between two shades of gray.
contemplation (9ewp(a theoria) The being-at-work of the intellect (vovc;

nous), a thinking that is like seeing, complete at every instant. Our
ordinary step-by-step thinking (StavOLa dianoia) aims at a completion
in contemplation, but it also presupposes an implicit contemplative
activity that is always present in us unnoticed. To know is not to achieve
something new, but to calm down out of the distractions of our native
disorder, and settle into the contemplative relation to things that is
already ours (247b 17-18). An analogy to the relation between step
by-step reasoning and contemplation may be found in two ways of
I I . English Glossary liii
looking at a painting or a natural scene; one's eyes may first roam from
part to part, making connections, but one may also take in the sight
whole, drinking it in with the eyes. The intellect similarly becomes
most active when it comes to rest.
deprivation (crTt§plJO'L<; steresis) The absence in something of anything

it might naturally have. Aristotle regards the distinction between
the deprivation, which is opposite to form, and the material, which
underlies and tends toward form, as a clarification of and advance
over the opinions that came out of Plato's Academy (Physics Bk. I, Ch.
9).
end (Tt§Xoc;; telos) The completion toward which anything tends, and
for the sake of which it acts. In deliberate action it has the character
of purpose, but in natural activity it refers to wholeness. Aristotle
does not say that animals, plants, and the cosmos have purposes but
that they are purposes, ends-in-themselves. Whether any of them is in
another sense for the sake of anything outside itself is always treated as
problematic in the theoretical works (Physics 194a 34-36, Metaphysics
1072b 1-3, On the Soul 415b 2-3), though Politics 1257a 15-22 treats all
other species as being for the sake of humans. As a settled opinion
found throughout his writings, Aristotle's "teleology" is nothing but
his claim that all natural beings are self-maintaining wholes.
example (e1Ta'Yill'Y� epagage) The perceptible particular, in which the in

telligible universal is always evident. The word induction, which refers
to a generalization from many examples, does not catch Aristotle's
meaning, which is a "being brought face-to-face with" the universal
present in each single example. A famous simile in the last chapter
of the Posterior Analytics (100a 12-13) is often taken to mean that the
universal must be built up out of particulars, just as a new position
of a routed army is built up when many men have taken stands, but
it means just the opposite: it only takes one man to take a stand, after
which every other soldier, down to the original coward, will be identi
cal to him. The rout corresponds to the condition of someone who has
not yet experienced some universal in any of its instances. Evidence
for this interpretation is found in many places, such as Posterior An
alytics 7la 7-9 and Physics 247b 5-7, in which Aristotle unmistakably
says that one particular is sufficient to make the universal known. That
in turn is because the same form that is at work holding together the
liv Glossary
perceived thing is also at work on the soul of the perceiver (On the Soul
424a 18-19).
first philosophy (1rpiilT1] cjiLAoao<j>(a prate philosophia) The study of

immovable being, or of the sources and causes of all being. Aristotle's
organized collection of writings on this topic was called by librarians
Tel IJ.ETel Tel <j>uaLK<i ta meta ta phusika, "what comes after the study
of natural things," but neither this phrase nor any like it is ever used
by Aristotle. He names the topic in the order of the things themselves,
rather than from the way we approach and think about them, and
calls physics second philosophy. What we call metaphysics, the post
natural, is for Aristotle the pre-natural, the source and foundation of
motion and change. That form is present in all things is a starting-point
for physics; what form is must be clarified by first philosophy (192a
34-36).
form (IJ.op<j>� morphe or el8o<; eidos or iBea idea) Being-at-work (1050b

1-2) . It is often said that Aristotle imports the form/ material distinction
from the realm of art and imposes it upon nature. In fact it is deduced
in Physics Bk. I, Ch. 7 as the necessary condition of any change or
becoming. In a compressed way in Physics Bk. II, Ch. 1, and more
fully in Metaphysics Bk. VIII, Ch. 2, it is argued that arrangement is
insufficient to account for form, which is evident only in the being
at-work of a thing.Morphe never means mere shape, but shapeliness,
which implies the act of shaping, and eidos, after Plato has molded its
use, is never the mere look of a thing, but its invisible look, seen only
in speech (193a 31). Idea, from the same root as eidos, is used primarily
when technical discussions within Plato's Academy are referred to, but
the English words "idea" and "ideal" are distortions of it, suggesting
something that can only be present in thought, which no one who used
the Greek word intended.
genus (revo<:: genos) A divisible kind or class. It might arise from

arbitrary acts of classification, in contrast to the eidos or species, the
kind that exactly corresponds to the form that makes a thing just what
it is. The highest general classes are the so-called "categories," the
irreducibly many ways of attributing being. Metaphysics Bk. V, Ch. 7
lists eight of these: what something is, of what sort it is, how much it
is, to what it is related, what it does, what is done to it, where it is, and
when it is. Categories IV adds two more: in what position it is, and in
what condition.
II. English Glossary lv
impasse (a1ropi.a aporia) A logical stalemate that seems to make a

question unanswerable. In fact, it is the impasses that reveal what the
genuine questions are. Zeno's paradoxes are spectacular examples,
resolved by Aristotle's definition of motion. In Metaphysics Book III,
a collection of impasses in first philosophy, Aristotle writes "those
who inquire without first being at an impasse are like people who do
not know which way they need to walk" (995a 36-38). The word is
often translated as " difficulty" or "perplexity," which are much too
weak; it is only the inability to get past an impasse with one's initial
presuppositions that forces the revision of a whole way of looking at
things.
incidental (KaT!I O'VJlPEPTJKOt; kata sumbebekos) Belonging to or hap

pening to a thing not as a consequence of what it is. The word
"accidental" is appropriate to some, but not all, incidental things; it is
not accidental that the housebuilder is a flute player, but it is inciden
tal. To any thing, an infinity of incidental attributes belongs, and this
opens the door to chance (196b 23-29).
lead back (O:v<iyeLV anagein) To produce an explanation while leaving

the thing explained intact. Aristotle leads back all motion to change of
place without reducing all motion to change of place.
material (VATJ hule) That which underlies the form of any particular
thing. Unlike what we mean by "matter," material has no properties
of its own, but is only a potency straining toward some form (192a 18-
19). Bricks and lumber are material for a house, but have identities only
because they are also forms for earth and water. The simplest bodies
must have an underlying material that is not bodily (214a 13-16).
motion (KLVTJO'Lt; kinesis) The being-at-work-staying-itself of a potency

as a potency (Physics Bk. III, Chs. 1-3). Any thing is the being-at-work
staying-itself of a potency as material for that thing, but so long as that
potency is at-work-staying-itself as a potency, there is motion (1048b
8-9). Motion is coextensive with, but not synonymous with change
(I!ETaPoAll metabole). It has four irreducible kinds, with respect to
thinghood, quality, quantity, and place. The last named is the primary
kind of motion but involves the least change, so that the list is in
ascending order of motions but descending order of changes.
mover (KLVOVV kinoun) Whatever causes motion in something else.

The phrase "efficient cause" is nowhere in Aristotle's writings, and
lvi Glossary
is highly misleading; it implies that the cause of every motion is a

push or a pull. In Physics Bk. VII, Ch. 2, it is argued that in one way
all motions lead back to pushes or pulls, but this is only a step in a
long argument that concludes that every motion depends on a first
mover that is motionless (258b 4-5), and the only kind of external
mover that is included among the four kinds of cause in Physics Bk.
II, Ch. 3 is the first origin of motion (194b 29-30). That there should
be incidental, intermediate links by which motions are passed along
when things bump explains nothing. That motion should originate in
something motionless is only puzzling if one assumes that what is
motionless must be inert; the motionless sources of motion to which
Aristotle refers are fully at-work, and in their activity there is no motion
because their being-at-work is complete at every instant (257b 9).
nature (<l>uO'L<; phusis) The internal activity that makes anything what
it is. The ideas of birth and growth, buried in the Latin origins of our
word, are close to the surface of the Greek word, sprouting into all
its uses. Nature is evident primarily in living things, but is present
in everything nonliving as well, since it all participates in the single
organized whole of the cosmos (1040b 5-10). Everything there is comes
from nature, since all chance events and products result from the
incidental interaction of two or more prior lines of causes, stemming
from the goal-seeking activities of natural beings, and all artful making
by human beings must borrow its material from natural things.
now (vvv nun) The indivisible limit of a time. The word "moment" is
not a suitable translation, because it refers to a stretch of a continuous
process, nor is the word "instant" appropriate, since the now is relative
to a soul that can recognize it. Time arises from the measurement of
motion, which can only take place in a soul that can relate two motions
by linking them to a now (223a 21-26).
number (apL9!16c; arithmos) Any multitude, whether of perceptible

things, definite intelligible things, or empty units. The last named, the
pure numbers of mathematics, Aristotle calls the numbers by which
we count (219b 8), but the word normally refers to the first kind,
the numbers which we count, such as the dozen eggs in a carton, a
multitude of something. The remaining kind of number is alluded to
at 206b 30-33; Plato seems to have taught that higher and lower forms
are not related as genus and species but in the same way as a number
and its units. That is, the unity of wisdom, courage, temperance, and
I I . English Glossary I vii
justice, for example, would not be a common element contained in

them all, but the sum of them all as virtue, the eidetic number four. A
number in any of its senses is something discrete and countable, and
never includes continuous magnitude; it therefore excludes fractions,
irrationals, negatives, and all the other things brought under the idea of
number when Descartes fused the ideas of multitude and magnitude,
or of how-many and how-much, into one. It is thus a paradox, lost on
us, when Aristotle says that time is both continuous and a number, but
only in resolving that paradox is it possible to see how he understands
time.
of-this-kind (1TOLOV poion) Being of one or another sort is a more

direct and immediate feature of things than having a quality (1TOLOTTJ<::
poiotes), a word that Aristotle rarely uses.
place (T01TO<;; tapas) The stable surroundings in which certain kinds of
beings can sustain themselves, in which alone they can be at rest and
fully active. When displaced, anything strives to regain its appropriate
place. This idea of place depends on the prior idea of the cosmos as an
organized whole, in which there is no void. The contrary idea of space,
as empty, homogeneous, and infinite, Aristotle regards as an abuse of
mathematical abstraction: the positing of an extension of body without
body.
potency (8uva11L<:: dunamis) The innate tendency of anything to be at

work in ways characteristic of the kind of thing it is; the way of being
that belongs to material (1050a 18). The word has a secondary sense
of mere logical possibility, applying to whatever admits of being true
(1019b 31-33), but this is never the way Aristotle uses it. A potency
in its proper sense will always emerge into activity, when the proper
conditions are present and nothing prevents it (1047b 35-1048a 21).
primary (1TpWTTJ, lTpWTOV prate, proton) First in responsibility. It is

translated as first when it means first in time.
rest (�PEilLa eremia or O"Tcl<JL<:: stasis) Motionlessness in whatever is

naturally capable of motion (202a 4-5) . A natural being at rest is still
active. Nothing is inert.
(]"
sense perception (atpl]a L<;; aisthesis) Always the reception of organized
wholes. Never sensation as meant by Hume or Kant, as the reception
of isolated sense data. The primary object of sense perception is a this,
a ready-made whole at which one may point.
I viii Glossary
separate (XWPLO'TOV choriston) Able to hang together as a whole, intact,

on its own. Aristotle never uses the word to mean " separable." Math
ematical things are not separate, not because they happen never to
be found in isolation, but because they do not compose anything that
could be at work. By the same token, the form is separate (1017b 27-
28 and 1029a 27-30). When the form is remembered or reconstructed
in thought as a universal, it is separate only in speech or articulation,
but the form as it is in itself, as a being-at-work and a cause of being,
is separate simply (1042a 32-33). In a number of places, such as 193b
4-5, Aristotle says that form is not separate except in speech, but this
is always a first dialectical step, articulating the way form first comes
to sight; at 194b 9-15 he already balances it with the opposite opinion,
and points to the inquiry in which the question is resolved.
so much (troa6v poson) Not isolated quantity but the muchness or
manyness that belongs to something. The former is studied by the
mathematician; the latter is present in nature.
source (apx� arch€) A ruling beginning. It can refer to the starting point
of reasoning, but the usual translations "principle" or "first principle"
are rarely adequate, since the word most often refers to a being rather
than to a proposition or rule. The divine intellect deduced in Bk. XII of
the Metaphysics is not an explanatory principle but a being on which
all other beings depend.
thinghood (oval.a ousia) The way of being that belongs to anything
which has attributes but is not an attribute of anything, which is also
separate and a this (1028b 38-39, 1029a 27-28). Whatever has being in
this way is an independent thing. In ordinary speech the word means
wealth or inalienable property; the inherited estate that cannot be taken
away from one who is born with it. Punning on its connection with
the participle of the verb "to be," Plato appropriates the word (as at
Meno 72B) to mean the very being of something, in respect to which
all instances of it are exactly alike. Aristotle elaborates this meaning
into a distinction between the thinghood of a thing and the array of
attributes---qualities, quantities, relations, places, times, actions, and
ways of being acted upon-that can belong to it fleetingly, incidentally,
derivatively, and in common with things of other kinds. He concludes
that thinghood is not reducible to any sum of attributes (1038b 25-
28, 1039a 1-3). It thus denotes a fullness of being and self-sufficiency
which the Christian thinker Augustine did not believe could be present
II. English Glossary lix
in a created thing (City of God XII, 2); he concluded that, while ousia
meant essentia, things in the world possess only deficient kinds of
being. Substantia, the capacity to have predicates, became the standard
word in the subsequent Latin tradition for the being of things. A blind
persistence in this tradition gave us "substance" as the translation of
a word that it was conceived as negating.
this (To8e TL tode ti) That which comes forth to meet perception as
a ready-made, independent whole. A this is something that can be
pointed at, because it holds together as separate from its surroundings,
and need not be constructed or construed out of constituent data, but
stands out from a background. The mistranslation "this somewhat"
reads the phrase backward, and is flatly ruled out by many passages,
such as 1038b 25-28.
underlying thing (imoKELilEVOV hupokeimenon) That inwhich anything

inheres. It can be of various kinds. Change presupposes something that
persists. Attributes belong to some whole that it not just their sum.
Form works on some material. An independent thing is an underlying
thing in the first two ways, but not in the third (1029a 20-28).
universal (Ka96Xou katholou) Any general idea, common property,

or one-applied-to-many. It is never separate and can have no causal
responsibility, unlike the form, which is a being-at-work present in
things, making them what they are (1040b 28-30, 1041a 4-5) .
virtue (apeTl} arete) Any of the excellences of the human soul, primarily
wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. Though they depend on
learning or habituation, Aristotle regards them as belonging to our
nature. Without them we are like houses without roofs, not fully what
we are (246a 17-246 b3).
what it is for something to be (Tt T)V elvaL ti en einai) What anything

keeps on being, in order to be at all. The phrase expands TL €an ti esti,
what something is, the generalized answer to the question Socrates
asks about anything important: "What is it?" Aristotle replaces the
bare "is" with a progressive form (in the past, but with no temporal
sense, since only in the past tense can the progressive aspect be made
unambiguous) plus an infinitive of purpose. The progressive signifies
the continuity of being-at-work, while the infinitive signifies the being
something or independence that is thereby achieved. The progressive
rules out what is transitory in a thing, and therefore not necessary
lx Glossary
to it; the infinitive rules out what is partial or universal in a thing,

and therefore not sufficient to make it be. The learned word " essence"
contains nothing of Aristotle's simplicity or power.
Aristotle's
Metaphysics
Book I (Book A)
Wisdom1
Chapter 1 All human beings by nature stretch themselves out 980a 21

toward knowing. A sign of this is our love of the senses; for even apart
from their use, they are loved on their own account, and above all the
rest, the one through the eyes. For not only in order that we might act,
but even when we are not going to act at all, we prefer seeing, one
might say, as against everything else. And the cause is that, among
the senses, this one most of all makes us discover things, and makes
evident many differences. By nature, then, the animals come into being
having sense perception, though in some of them memory does not
emerge out of this, while in others it does. And for this reason, these 980b 21
latter are more intelligent and more able to learn than those that are
unable to remember, while as many of them as are not able to hear
sounds are intelligent without learning (such as a bee, or any other
kind of animal that might be of this sort), but as many do learn as have
this sense in addition to memory. So the other animals live by images
and memories, but have a small share of experience, but the human
race lives also by art and reasoning. And for human beings, experience
arises from memory, since many memories of the same thing bring to 981 a
completion a capacity for one experience.
Now experience seems to be almost the same thing as knowledge
or art, but for human beings, knowledge and art result from expe
rience, for experience makes art, as Polus says and says rightly, but
inexperience makes chance. And art comes into being whenever, out
of many conceptions from experience, one universal judgment arises
about those that are similar. For to have a judgment that this thing
was beneficial to Callias when he was sick with this disease, and to
Socrates, and one by one in this way to many people, belongs to ex
perience. But the judgment that it was beneficial to all such people, 981 a 1 0
marked out as being of one kind, when they were sick with this dis
ease, such as to sluggish or irritable people2 when they were feverish
1 This title for Book I supplied by the translator.
2 The Greek words imply the predominance, respectively, of phlegm or yellow bile,
two of the four humors whose imbalance was thought to produce many diseases.
2 Book I (Book A) Chapter 1
with heat, belongs to art. For the purpose of acting, experience doesn't
seem to differ from art at all, and we even see people with experience
being more successful than those who have a rational account with
out experience. (The cause of this is that experience is familiarity with
things that are particular, but art with those that are universal, while
actions and all becoming are concerned with what is particular. For the
doctor does not cure a human being, except incidentally, but Callias or
981 a 20 Socrates or any of the others called by such a name, who happens to
be a human being. So if someone without experience has the reasoned
account and is familiar with the universal, but is ignorant of what is
particular within it, he will often go astray in his treatment, since what
is treated is particular.)
Nevertheless, we think that knowing and understanding are
present in art more than is experience and we take the possessors
of arts to be wiser than people with experience, as though in every in
stance wisdom is more something resulting from and following along
with knowing; and this is because the ones know the cause while the
others do not. For people with experience know the what, but do not
981 a 30 know the why, but the others are acquainted with the why and the
cause. For this reason we also think the master craftsmen in each kind
981 b of work are more honorable and know more than the manual laborers,
and are also wiser, because they know the causes of the things they
do,3 as though people are wiser not as a result of being skilled at
action, but as a result of themselves having the reasoned account and
knowing the causes. And in general, a sign of the one who knows and
the one who does not is being able to teach, and for this reason we
regard the art, more than the experience, to be knowledge, since the
ones can, but the others cannot, teach.
981 b 1 0 Further, we consider none of the senses to be wisdom, even though
they are the most authoritative ways of knowing particulars; but they
do not pick out the why of anything, such as why fire is hot, but only
that it is hot. So it is likely that the one who first discovered any art
whatever that was beyond the common perceptions was wondered
at by people, not only on account of there being something useful in
3 Some of the manuscripts have the following insertion here: "The others, as do also
some of the things without souls, do what they do without knowing, as fire burns, the
soulless things doing each of these things by some nature, but the manual laborers
by habit."
Book I (Book A) Chapter 2 3
his discoveries, but as someone wise and distinguished from other

people. But once more arts had been discovered, and some of them
were directed toward necessities but others toward a way of living, it
is likely that such people as were discoverers of the latter kind were
always considered wiser, because their knowledge was not directed 981 b 20
toward use. Hence when all such arts had been built up, those among
the kinds of knowledge directed at neither pleasure nor necessity were
discovered, and first in those places where there was leisure. It is for
this reason that the mathematical arts were first constructed in the
neighborhood of Egypt, for there the tribe of priests was allowed to
live in leisure.
Now it has been said in the writings on ethics what the difference is
among art, demonstrative knowledge, and the other things of a similar
kind, but the purpose for which we are now making this argument is
that all people assume that what is called wisdom is concerned with
first causes and origins. Therefore, as was said above, the person with 981 b 30
experience seems wiser than those who have any perception whatever,
the artisan wiser than those with experience, the master craftsman
wiser than the manual laborer, and the contemplative arts more so than 982a
the productive ones. It is apparent, then, that wisdom is a knowledge
concerned with certain sources and causes.
Chapter 2 Since we are seeking this knowledge, this should be

examined: about what sort of causes and what sort of sources wisdom
is the knowledge. Now if one takes the accepted opinions we have
about the wise man, perhaps from this it will become more clear.
We assume first that the wise man knows all things, in the way
that it is possible, though he does not have knowledge of them as 982a 1 0
particulars. Next, we assume that the one who is able to know things
that are difficult, and not easy for a human being to know, is wise; for
perceiving is common to everyone, for which reason it is an easy thing
and nothing wise. Further, we assume the one who has more precision
and is more able to teach the causes is wiser concerning each kind of
knowledge. And among the kinds of knowledge, we assume the one
that is for its own sake and chosen for the sake of knowing more to be
wisdomthan the one chosen for the sake of results, and that the more
ruling one is wisdom more so than the more subordinate one; for the
wise man ought not to be commanded but to give orders, and ought
not to obey someone else, but the less wise ought to obey him.
982a 20 We have, then, such and so many accepted opinions about wisdom
and those who are wise. Now of these, the knowing of all things must
belong to the one who has most of all the universal knowledge, since
he knows in a certain way all the things that come under it; and these
are just about the most difficult things for human beings to know, those
that are most universal, since they are farthest away from the senses.
And the most precise of the kinds of knowledge are the ones that
are most directed at first things, since those that reason from fewer
things are more precise than those that reason from extra ones, as
arithmetic is more precise than geometry. But surely the skill that is
suited to teach is the one that has more insight into causes, for those
982a 30 people teach who give an account of the causes about each thing. And
knowing and understanding for their own sakes belong most to the
knowledge of what is most knowable. For the one who chooses what
982b is known through itself would most of all be choosing that which is
knowledge most of all, and of this sort is the knowledge of what is most
knowable. But what are most knowable are the first things and the
causes, for through these and from these the other things are known,
but these are not known through what comes under them. And the
most ruling of the kinds of knowledge, or the one more ruling than
what is subordinate to it, is the one that knows for what purpose each
thing must be done; and this is the good of each thing, and in general
the best thing in the whole of nature. So from all the things that have
been said, the name sought falls to the same kind of knowledge, for it
982b 1 0 must be a contemplation of the first sources and causes, since also the
good, or that for the sake of which, is one of the causes.
That it is not a productive knowledge is clear too from those who
first engaged in philosophy. For by way of wondering, people both
now and at first began to philosophize, wondering first about the
strange things near at hand, then going forward little by little in this
way and coming to impasses about greater things, such as about the
attributes of the moon and things pertaining to the sun and the stars
and the coming into being of the whole. But someone who wonders and
is at an impasse considers himself to be ignorant (for which reason the
lover of myth is in a certain way philosophic, since a myth is composed
982b 20 of wonders). So if it was by fleeing ignorance that they philosophized,
it is clear that by means of knowing they were in pursuit of knowing,
and not for the sake of any kind of use. And the following testifies to the
same thing: for it was when just about all the necessities were present,
as well as things directed toward the greatest ease and recreation, that
this kind of understanding began to be sought. It is clear then that
we seek it for no other use at all, but just as that human being is free,
we say, who has his being for his own sake and not for the sake of
someone else, so also do we seek it as being the only one of the kinds
of knowledge that is free, since it alone is for its own sake.
For this reason one might justly regard the possession of it as not
appropriate to humans. For in many ways human nature is slavish, so 982b 30
that, according to Simonides, "only a god should have this honor," but
a man is not worthy of seeking anything but the kind of knowledge
that fits him. If indeed the poets have a point and it is the nature of
the divine power to be jealous, it would be likely to happen most of 983a
all in this case, and all extraordinary people would be ill-fated. But it
is not even possible for the divine power to be jealous, but according
to the common saying "many lyrics are lies," and one ought not to
regard anything else as more honorable than this knowledge. For the
most divine is also the most honorable, and this knowledge by itself
would be most divine in two ways. For what most of all a god would
have is that among the kinds of knowledge that is divine, if in fact any
of them were about divine things. But this one alone happens to have
both these characteristics; for the divine seems to be among the causes
for all things, and to be a certain source, and such knowledge a god
alone, or most of all, would have. All kinds of knowledge, then, are 983a 1 0
more necessary than this one, but none is better.
It is necessary, however, for the possession of it to settle for us in a
certain way4 into the opposite of the strivings with which it began. For
everyone begins, as we are saying, from wondering whether things are
as they seem, such as the self-moving marvels,S or about the reversals
of the sun6 or the incommensurability of the diagonal (for it seems
4 Contemplation and wonder are opposite only in a certain way; they are alike in being
active, humble, and appreciative. There is all the difference in the world between
problem solving, which sets aside a solved problem like a finished crossword puzzle,
and an inquiry that works through wonder and out the other side.
5 An early commentator describes these as toys displayed in magic shows, and
Mechanics 848a 20-38 describes a way that mechanical marvels were moved by
concealed gears.
6 If one pays attention to the ascent and descent of the sun in the sky from day to
day, the solstices are astounding events. The sun stands still at the same height for a
few days before reversing direction.
amazing to all those who have not yet seen the cause if anything
is not measured by the smallest part)? But it is necessary to end in
what is opposite and better, as the saying goes, just as in these cases
983a 20 when people understand them; for nothing would be so surprising to
a geometer as if the diagonal were to become commensurable. What,
then, is the nature of the knowledge being sought, has been said, and
what the object is on which the inquiry and the whole pursuit must
alight.
Chapter 3 Since it is clear that one must take hold of a knowledge

of the causes that originate things (since that is when we say we know
each thing, when we think we know its first cause), while the causes
are meant in four ways, of which one is thinghood, or what it is for
something to be (since the why leads back to the ultimate reasoned
983a 30 account, and the first why is a cause and source), another is the material
or underlying thing, a third is that from which the source of motion
is, and the fourth is the cause opposite to that one, that for the sake
of which or the good (since it is the completion of every coming-into
being and motion), which have been sufficiently looked into by us
983b in the writings about nature, still, let us take up also those who came
before us into the inquiry about beings and philosophized about truth.
For it is clear that they too speak of certain sources and causes. So for
those who go back over these things, there will be some profit for the
present pursuit; for we will either find out some other kind of cause
or be more persuaded about the ones we are now speaking of.
Of those who first engaged in philosophy, most thought that the
only sources of all things were of the species of material; that of which
all things are made, out of which they first come into being and into
983b 1 0 which they are at last destroyed, its thinghood abiding but changing
in its attributes, this they claim is the element and origin of, things,
for which reason nothing ever comes into being or perishes, since this
sort of nature is always preserved, just as we would not say either
that Socrates simply comes into being when he becomes beautiful or
educated in refined pursuits, or that he perishes when he sheds these
conditions, since the underlying thing, Socrates himself, persists, so
7 The Pythagorean demonstration that no fraction of the side of a square, however

small, could fit any exact number of times into its diagonal, is given in the Dover
edition of Euclid's Elements, Vol. Ill, p. 2.
neither does anything else. For there must be some nature, either one
or multiple, out of which the other things come into being while that
one is preserved. About the number and kind of such sources, however,
they do not all say the same thing, but Thales, the founder of this sort 983b 20
of philosophy, says it is water (for which reason too he declared that
the earth is on water), getting hold of this opinion perhaps from seeing
that the nourishment of all things is fluid, and that heat itself comes
about from it and lives by means of it (and that out of which things
come into being is the source of them all). So he got hold of this opinion
by this means, and because the seeds of all things have a fluid nature,
while water is in turn the source of the nature of fluid things.
There are some who think that very ancient thinkers, long before
the present age, who gave the first accounts of the gods, had an opinion
of this sort about nature. For they made Ocean and Tethys the parents 983b 30
of what comes into being, and made the oath of the gods be by water,
called Styx by them; for what is oldest is most honored, and that
by which one swears is the most honored thing. But whether this 984a
opinion about nature is something archaic and ancient might perhaps
be unclear, but Thales at least is said to have spoken in this way about
the first cause. (One would not consider Hippo worthy to place among
these, on account of his cut-rate thinking.) Anaxirnenes and Diogenes
set down air as more primary than water and as the most originative of
the simple bodies,S while Hippasus of Metapontium and Heracleitus
of Ephesus set down fire, and Empedocles, adding earth as a fourth
to those mentioned, sets down the four (for he says these always
remain and do not come into being except in abundance or fewness, 984a 1 0
being combined and separated into or out of one) . Anaxagoras of
Clazomenae, who was before Empedocles in age but after him in
his works, said the sources were infinite; for he said that almost all
homogeneous things are just like water or fire in coming into being or
perishing only by combination and separation, but otherwise neither
come into being nor perish but remain everlasting.
From these things, then, one might suppose that the only cause is
the one accounted for in the species of material; but as people went
forward in this way, their object of concern itself opened a road for
8 Aristotle does not consider earth, air, fire, and water elements, since they can turn
into each other, but only as the simplest bodies. What underlies them is no longer
bodily.
them, and contributed to forcing them to inquire along it. For no matter
984a 20 how much every coming-into-being and destruction is out of some
one or more kinds of material, why does this happen and what is its
cause? For surely the underlying material itself does not make itself
change. I mean, for example, neither wood nor bronze is responsible,
respectively, for its own changing, nor does the wood make a bed or
the bronze a statue, but something else is responsible for the change.
But to inquire after this is to seek that other kind of source, which we
would call that from which the origin of motion is. Now some of these
who from the very beginning applied themselves to this sort of pursuit
and said that the underlying material was one thing, were not at all
984a 30 displeased with their own accounts, but some of those who said it was
one, as though defeated by this inquiry, said that the one and the whole
of nature were motionless, not only with respect to coming into being
and destruction (for this is present from the beginning and everyone
984b agrees to it), but also with respect to every other kind of change, and
this is peculiar to them. So of those who said that the whole is one, none
happened to catch sight of this sort of cause unless in fact Parmenides
did, and he only to the extent that he set down the causes as being
not only one but in some way two.9 But it is possible to say so about
those who made things more than one, such as hot and cold, or fire
and earth; for they use the nature of fire as having the power to set
things in motion, but water and earth and such things as the opposite.
But after these people and sources of this kind, since they were not
984b 1 0 sufficient to generate the nature of things, again by the truth itself, as
we say, people were forced to look for the next kind of source. For that
some beings are in a good or beautiful condition, or come into being
well or beautifully, it is perhaps not likely that fire or earth or any other
such thing is responsible, nor that they would have thought so. Nor, in
turn, would it be a good idea to tum over so great a concern to chance or
luck. So when someone said an intellect was present, just as in animals,
also in nature as the cause of the cosmos and of all order, he looked
9 Parmenides's poem can be read as a complex refutation of the sort of account given
by such thinkers as Thales and Anaximenes, who said the world was one permanent
material which turned into the many things of experience. On the basis of reason
(Parmenides's way of truth), the one being could not change, while on the basis of
appearance (his way of seeming), there must be two ultimate causes at work (light
and night).
like a sober man next to people who had been speaking incoherently
beforehand. Obviously we know that Anaxagoras reached as far as
saying these things, but Hermotimus of Clazomenae is given credit 984b 20
for saying them earlier. Those, then, who took things up in this way
set down a source which is at the same time the cause of the beautiful
among things and the sort of cause from which motion belongs to
things.
Chapter 4 One might suspect that Hesiod was the first one to seek
out such a thing, or someone else who had set down love or desire
among the beings as a source, as Parmenides also did; for he, in getting
things ready for the coming into being of the whole, says that first " of
all the gods, [the all-governing divinity] devised love," while Hesiod
says
Chaos came into being as the very first of all things, but then
Broad-breasted earth .... and also
Love, who shines out from among all the immortals,
as though there needed to be present among beings some sort of cause
that would move things and draw them together. Now how I ought
to distribute their portions to them about who was first, permit me
to postpone judging. But since the opposites of the good things are
obviously also present in nature, and there is not only order and beauty 985a
but also disorder and ugliness, and more bad and ordinary things
than good and beautiful ones, in this way someone else brought in
friendship and strife, each as the cause of one of these kinds of thing.
For if one were to pursue and get hold of Empedocles' thinking, rather
than what he said inarticulately, one would find that friendship was
the cause of the good things and strife of the bad. So if one were to
claim that Empedocles both says and is the first to say that bad and
good are sources, one would perhaps speak rightly, if in fact the cause
of all good things is the good itself. 985a 1 0
So these people, as we are saying, evidently got this far with two
causes out of those we distinguished in the writings about nature,
the material and that from which the motion is, but did so dimly
and with no clarity, rather in the way nonathletes do in fights; for
while dancing around they often land good punches, but they do not
do so out of knowledge, nor do these people seem to know what
they are saying. For it is obvious that they use these causes scarcely
ever, and only to a tiny extent. For Anaxagoras uses the intellect as
a makeshift contrivance for cosmos production, and whenever he

985a 20 comes to an impasse about why something is necessarily a certain
way, he drags it in, but in the other cases he assigns as the causes of
what happens everything but the intellect; and Empedocles, though
he uses his causes more than that, surely does not either use them
sufficiently or come up with any consistency with them. Certainly in
many places friendship separates things for him, and strife combines
things. For whenever the whole is divided by strife into its elements,
fire is combined into one, as is each of the other elements; but whenever
they come back together into one, the parts must be separated back out
of each element. Empedocles was the first who, beyond those before
985a 30 him, brought in this sort of cause by dividing it, making the source of
motion not one thing but different and opposite ones, and furthermore,
he first spoke of the so-called four elements as the causes in the species
of material. (In fact, though, he didn't use them as four, but as though
985b they were only two: fire on one side by itself, and its opposites, earth,
air, and water, as one nature on the other side. One may get this by
looking carefully at what is in the verses.)
So as we are saying, he claimed that the sources were of this sort
and this many. But Leucippus and his colleague Democritus say the
elements are the full and the void, of which the one, as what is, is full
and solid, while the other, what is not, is void (for which reason they
985b 1 0
say that being in no sense is more than nonbeing, nor body more so
than void), and that these are responsible for things as material.
just as those who make the underlying being one, and generat
� d
the
other things by means of modifications of it, set down the rare d
the dense as the sources of the modifications, in the same way these
people too say that the differences in the material are responsible for
the other things. They, however, say these differences are three: shape,
order, and position. For they say that what is differs only by means of
" design, grouping, and twist," but of these, design is shape, grouping
is order, and twist is position. For A differs from N in shape, AN from
NA in order, and Z from N in position. As for motion, from what source
985b 20 or in what way it belongs to things, these people, much like the others,
lazily let it go. So about the two causes, as we are saying, the inquiry
seems to have gone this far on the part of our predecessors.
Chapter 5 But among these people and before them, those who are
called Pythagoreans, taking up mathematical things, were the first to
promote these, and having been reared on them, they supposed that
the sources of them were the sources of all things. And since numbers
are by nature primary among these, and in them they thought they saw
many similarities to the things that are and come to be, more so than
in fire or earth or water-that such-and-such an attribute of numbers
was justice, so-and-so is soul or intellect, another one due measure, 985b 30
and likewise with, one might say, everything-and what's more, saw
in numbers the properties and explanations of musical harmonies,
since then the entire nature of the other things seemed to be after
the likeness of numbers, and the numbers seemed to be the primary 986a
things in all nature, they assumed that the elements of numbers were
the elements of all things, and that the whole heaven was a harmony
and a number. And as many things among numbers and harmonies
as had analogies to the attributes and parts of the heavens and to the
whole cosmic array, they collected and fit together. And if anything
was left out anywhere, they were persistent, so that everything would
be strung together for them as a system. I mean, for example, since the
number ten seemed to be complete and to include the whole nature of
numbers,lO they said that the things that move through the heavens 986a lO
are also ten, but since there are only nine visible, for this reason they
made the tenth the counter-earth. But this is set out more precisely by
us in other writings.11
But the purpose for which we are recounting these things is this:
that we might understand from these people both what they set down
as causes, and how they fall in with the kinds of causes described. Now
it is obvious that they consider number to be a cause both as material
for things and as responsible for their attributes and states; that they
consider the elements of number to be the even and the odd, of which
1 0 Ten is not a "perfect" number in the sense that six is, as the sum of all its factors,
but it is, for example, 1 +2+3+4. Speusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the
Academy, was an ardent Pythagorean who devoted half a book to the properties of
the number ten, as a form that included all the patterns (triangular, etc.) that are
evident in other numbers.
1 1 See On the Heavens, Bk. II, Ch. 1 3. The Pythagoreans, among other ancients, put
the sun at the center and the earth in motion. The counter-earth was conceived as
a dark planet, moving at the same rate as the earth, always concealed by the sun.
(The number of nine celestial bodies counts the sphere of the fixed stars as one thing,
along with the five visible planets and the earth, moon, and sun.)
the latter is limited but the former unlimited12; that they consider the
986a 20 number one to be composed of both of these (for it is both even and
odd13); and that they consider number to arise from the one, and the
whole heaven, as was said, to be numbers.
Various ones of these same people say that there are ten causes,
gathered into a series of corresponding pairs:
limit unlimited
odd even
one many
right left
male female
still moving
straight crooked
light dark
good bad
square oblong.
In this way too Alcmaeon of Croton seems to have taken it up,
and he either got it from them or they got this account from him,
986a 30 since Alcmaeon expressed himself in much the way they did. For he
says that many human things are twofold, referring not just to the
oppositions as they distinguished them, but to any there might happen
to be, such as white/black, sweet/bitter, good/bad, big/little. So he
986b spread out indiscriminate statements about the rest of them, but the
Pythagoreans declared how many and what the oppositions were.
From both Alcmaeon and the Pythagoreans there is this much that
one may gather, that the sources of things are contraries, and from the
latter, how many and what these are. But in what way it is possible
to bring them into line with the kinds of causes described was not
clearly articulated by these people, though they seem to rank them as
in the species of material, since they say that being is put together and
molded out of these contraries as constituents.
So of the ancients who said that the elements of nature are more
986b 1 0 than one, it is also sufficient from the preceding to see their thinking.
1 2 The even breaks in half; the extra unit in the odd binds it into a whole.
1 3 The odd numbers arise from the unit when it is added to the evens, but the even
numbers also arise from the unit, since it must be doubled to produce the first of
them. One itself is not properly a number at all, but that which generates all species
of them, and is potentially each.
But there are some who declared about the whole that it is one nature,
though not all in the same way, either in how good their thinking
was or with respect to the nature. An account about them in no way
fits into the present examination of the causes (for they do not speak
in the same way as some writers about nature, who set down being
as one but generate things out of the one as from material, but in a
different way, since those others add in motion when they generate
the whole, but these people say that it is motionless). Nonetheless,
it can find a home in this inquiry to this extent: Parmenides seems
to take hold of what is one according to reason, Melissus of what is 986b 20
one in material (on account of which one says that it is finite, the
other infinite). But Xenophanes, the first of these who made things
one (for Parmenides is said to have become a student of his), made
nothing clear, nor does he seem to have made contact with nature in
either of these two ways, but gazing off into the whole heaven, he
said that divinity was one. So these, as we say, must be dismissed
from the present inquiry, two of them completely as being a little
too crude, Xenophanes and Melissus, though Parmenides to some
degree seems to speak with more insight; for since he thought it fit
that besides being, nonbeing could not be in any way, he necessarily
supposed that being is one and that there is nothing else (about which 986b 30
we have spoken more clearly in the writings about nature14), but
being forced to follow appearances, and assuming that what is one
from the standpoint of reason is more than one from the standpoint of
perception, he set down in turn two causes and two sources, a hot one
and a cold one, as though speaking of something like fire and earth,
and of these he ranks the hot one under being and the other under 987a
nonbeing.
So from what has been said, and from the wise men who have so far
sat in council in our account, we have ascertained these things: from
the first ones that the origin of things is corporeal (since water and
fire and things of that sort are bodies), and from some of them that
the corporeal source is one, from others more than one, both kinds,
however, placing them as in the species of material; and from others
that there is this sort of cause and in addition to it one from which the
motion is, while from some of them that this cause is one, from others
14 See Physics, Bk. I, chapters 2 and 3, especially 1 87a 3-l l.

987a 1 0 that it is twofold. So up to the time of the Italians,15 and apart from
them, the others have spoken about these things in ways that made
them murkier, except, as we say, they happened to use two kinds of
cause, and one of these, that from which the motion is, some made
one and others twofold. Now the Pythagoreans have said in the same
way that the sources are two, but they added on top of that this much
that is peculiar to them, that they did not consider the limited and the
unlimited to be natures belonging to any other things, such as fire or
earth or anything else of that sort, but that the unlimited itself and the
one itself are the thinghood of the things to which they are attributed,
987a 20 for which reason also, number is the thinghood of all things. About
these things, then, they spoke in this way, and they were the first to
speak about and define the what-it-is of things, though they handled
it in too simple a way. For they defined superficially, and the primary
thing to which the stated definition belonged, they considered to be the
thinghood of the thing, just as if one were to suppose that the number
two and double were the same thing, because doubleness belongs first
of all to the number two. But still it is not the same thing to be double
and to be two; otherwise what is one would be many, which in fact is
the way it turned out for these people. So from those who came before
us, there is this much to grasp.
Chapter 6 After the philosophic speculations that have been men

987a 30 tioned came the careful work of Plato, which in many ways followed
the lead of these people, but also had separate features that went be
yond the philosophy of the Italians. For having become acquainted
from youth at first with Cratylus and the Heracleitean teachings that
all sensible things are always in flux and that there is no knowledge
987b of them, he also conceived these things that way later on. And since
Socrates exerted himself about ethical matters and not at all about the
whole of nature, but in the former sought the universal and was the
first to be skilled at thinking about definitions, Plato, when he adopted
this, took it up as applying to other things and not to sensible ones,
because of this: it was impossible that there be any common definition
of any of the perceptible things since they were always changing. So he
called this other sort of beings forms, and said the perceptible things
1 5 That is, the Pythagoreans.

were apart from these and all spoken of derivatively from these, for the
many things with the same names as the forms were results of partici 987b 1 0
pation. He changed only the name participation, for the Pythagoreans
said that beings are by way of imitation of the numbers, but Plato by
way of participation, having changed the name. What this participa
tion or imitation of the forms might be, however, they were in unison
in leaving behind to be sought.
What's more, apart from the sensible things and the forms, he said
there were among things mathematical ones, in between, differing
from the sensible ones in being everlasting and motionless, and from
the forms in that there are any multitude of them alike, while each form
itself is only one. And since the forms are the causes of the others, he
thought that the elements of the forms were the elements of all beings. 987b 20
As material, then, the great and the small were the sources, and as
thinghood, the one, for out of the former, by participation in the one,
the forms are composed as numbers.1 6 So in saying that the one was an
independent thing, and not any other thing said to be one, he spoke in
much the same way as the Pythagoreans, and in saying that numbers
were the causes of thinghood for other things he spoke exactly as they
did; but to have made a dyad in place of the infinite as one thing, and
to have made the infinite out of the great and the small, was peculiar
to him. It was also peculiar to him to set the numbers apart from the
perceptible things, while they had said that the things themselves were
numbers, and they did not set the mathematical things between them.
Now his having made the one and the numbers be apart from the things 987b 30
we handle, and not the same way the Pythagoreans had said, and his
introduction of the forms came about because of his investigation in the
1 6 The Greek word arithmos does not refer only to a mathematical number, but to a
m ultitude of any kind. Here it is applied to the forms as distinct from mathematical
things. The form is conceived not as a common element in things, but as itself
an assemblage of intelligible elements, having the unity conferred by the one, as
well as the internal diversity arising out of indefinite duality. This technical side of
Plato's teaching appears only in glimpses in the dialogues, where the one appears
as the beautiful itself in the Symposium, or as the good itself, beyond being, in the
Republic, and where the dyad lies behind the puzzle of the relation of motion, rest,
and being in the Sophist. Being is not a third thing that motion and rest share, but
is the determinate twofoldness of motion and rest themselves. See jacob Klein, Greek
Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (M.I.T. Press, 1 968), Ch. 7, and Robert
Williamson, " Eidos and Agathon in Plato's Republic," The St. fohn's Review, XXXIX, 1 -2
(1 98 9-90).
realm of definitions (for the earlier thinkers had no part in dialectic),

but his having made the other nature a dyad was so that the numbers,
988a outside of the primes, might be generated out of it in a natural way; as
though from some sort of modeling clay.
But surely things happen in the opposite way, for this way is not
reasonable. For they make many things out of this material, while the
form generates only once, but it is apparent that from one material
comes one table, while the person who brings the form to bear, though
he is one, makes many tables. And it is similar with the male in relation
to the female; for she becomes pregnant by one act of intercourse, while
the male is the cause of many pregnancies, and surely these things are
images of the origins of things. But Plato made distinctions in this way
about the things that are being sought, and it is clear from what has
988a 1 0 been said that he used only two causes, the one that is responsible
for the what-it-is and the one that results from material (for the forms
are causes for the other things of what they are, and the one is such
a cause for the forms) . And it is clear what the underlying material is
said to be, over against which the forms are, m the case of perceptible
things, and the one, among the forms, that it is the dyad of the great
and the small. And further, he referred the cause of what is good and
bad respectively to each of the two elements, just as we say certain of
the earlier philosophers, such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras, were
trying to find a way to do.
Chapter 7 In a curtailed way, then, and hitting the high spots, we

988a 20 have gotten hold of who happens to have spoken about origins and
truth, and in what way. Still, we get this much from them: that of those
who have spoken about origin and cause, not one has said anything
that went outside those that were distinguished by us in the writings
on nature, but all of them, though murkily, have obviously touched on
them in some way. For some speak of the source as material, whether
they set it down as one or more than one, and whether they set it up as
a body or as bodiless. (For example, Plato speaks of the great and the
small, the Italians of the unlimited, Empedocles of fire, earth, water,
and air, and Anaxagoras of the infinity of homogeneous things; now
all of these have gotten hold of this sort of cause, as also have all those
988a 30 who speak of air or fire or water or something denser than fire but less
dense than air, since some people have said that the primary element
is of this sort.)
So these people have grasped only this sort of cause, but some others
have grasped the sort from which the source of motion is (as have all
those who make friendship and strife, or intellect, or love a source).
But about what it is for something to be, and thinghood, no one has
delivered up a clear account, but those who posit the forms speak of 988b
it most. (For they do not take up the forms as material of perceptible
things or the one as material of the forms, nor either the forms or the
one as anything from which the source of motion comes-for they say
rather that they are responsible for motionlessness and being at rest
but they offer the forms as what it is for each of the other things to be,
and the one as what it is for the forms to be.)
That for the sake of which actions and changes and motions are,
they speak of as a cause in a certain way, but they do not say it that
way, nor speak of what is so by its very nature. For those who speak of
intellect or friendship as good set these up as causes, but do not speak
as though anything that is either has its being or comes into being for 988b 1 0
the sake of these, but as though motions arose from these. And in the
same way too, those who speak of the one or being as such a nature do
say that it is the cause of thinghood, but not that it either is or comes
about for the sake of this; so it turns out that they in a certain way both
say and do not say that the good is a cause, since they say it is so not
simply but incidentally. 1 7 So all these people seem also to bear witness
that the right distinctions have been made by us about the causes, as
to both how many and of what sort they are, since they have not been
able to touch on another kind of cause; and it is clear in addition that
the sources of things must be sought either all in this way or in some
particular way from among them. After this, then, let us go through 988b 20
the possible impasses that concern the way each of these people spoke
and how each one stands toward the sources.
Chapter 8 Now it is clear that all those who set down the whole as
one, and some one nature as material, and this as bodily and having
magnitude, erred in many ways. For they set down elements of bodies
1 7 Again, one must distinguish what is in Plato's dialogues from his unwritten technical
doctrines. In the dialogues there is no "theory of forms," but only a number of
dialectical invitations to the reader to think in such a direction. On the other hand, the
classic statement in all literature that an adequate explanation of anything requires
knowing the cause for the sake of which it is, may be found in the Phaedo at 97B-99D.
only, but not of bodiless thlngs, though there are also bodiless ones.
And when they turn their hands to giving an account of the causes of
coming-into-being and destruction, in fact when they give accounts of
the natures of all things, they abolish the cause of motion. What's more,
they err by not setting down thlnghood as a cause at all, nor the what
988b 30 it-is of things, and on top of this by casually calling any one whatever of
the simple bodies, except earth, a source, without examining the way
they are made by coming into being out of one another; I am speaking
of fire, water, earth, and air. For some of them do come into being out
of others by combination, and others by separation, but thls makes the
greatest difference toward being more primary and more derivative.
For in one sense the most elementary thing of all would seem to be
989a that out of which things first come into being by combination, and it
is the most finely divided and lightest of bodies that would be of thls
sort. (For thls reason, all those who set up fire as a source would be
speaking most in conformity to this argument, but each of the others
also agrees that the element of bodies is of thls sort. At any rate, none
of those who said there was one element thought it fitting for it to be
earth, obviously because of its coarse texture, while each of the three
elements has won over some judge, for some say this to be fire, some
water, and some air. So why in the world don't they also name earth, as
989a 1 0 most people do? For these do say everythlng is earth, and Hesiod says
that the earth was the first of bodies to come into being-so ancient
and popular has thls judgment happened to be.) So according to this
argument, one could not speak rightly if he were to name any of these
except fire, nor if he set up something denser than air but less dense
than water. On the other hand, if what is later in its corning into being
is more primary in its nature, and what is ripened and compounded
is later in its coming into being, the contrary of these things would be
the case, and water would be more primary than air, and earth more
primary than water.
Now about those people who set up one cause of the sort we are
989a 20 speaking of, let these things we have said be sufficient; but the same
thing may also be said if someone sets these up as more than one, as
Empedocles says the material consists of four bodies. For in some ways
the same things must turn out for hlm too, as well as others peculiar
to hlm. For we see them come into being out of one another, as though
the same body does not always remain fire or earth (but these things
were spoken of in the writings about nature), and as for the cause of
moving things, whether one ought to set it down as one or two, one
ought not to suppose that he spoke either correctly or even completely
reasonably. And it is necessary that those who speak this way abolish
qualitative change altogether, for cold will not come from hot nor hot
from cold. For then something would undergo the opposite conditions
themselves, and there would be some one nature which became fire 989a 30
and water, which he denies.
And if one assumes that Anaxagoras spoke of two elements, one's
assumption would be very much in accord with reason, though he
himself did not articulate this; nevertheless it follows necessarily for
those who track him down. Now while it is absurd to say that at their
source all things are mixed together, not only for other reasons, but
also because they would have to turn out to have been present all 989b
along as unmixed, and because it is not in accord with nature for any
chance thing to be mixed with any other, and on top of these things,
because properties and incidental attributes could be separated from
the things they belong to (for of the same things of which there is
mixing, there is also separating); nevertheless, it one were to follow it
up, articulating thoroughly what he wanted to say, he would perhaps
appear to be speaking in something more like the latest fashion. For
when nothing was separated, it is clear that there was nothing true
to say about the thinghood of that mixture; I mean, for example,
that it was neither white nor black nor gray nor any other color, but
necessarily colorless, since it would otherwise have had a certain one
of these colors. Likewise, by this same argument, it was without flavor 989b 1 0
or any other similar attribute, for it would not be possible for it to be of
any sort or of any amount. For then some one in particular of the forms
spoken of would have belonged to it, but this is impossible since all are
mixed together; for it would already have been separated out, while he
says that all things are mixed together except the intellect, which is the
only thing unmixed and pure. So from these things it turns out that he
is saying that the sources are the one (for this is simple and unmixed),
and another which is just like what we set down as the indeterminate
prior to its being made definite and participating in some form; so
while he speaks neither correctly nor wisely, nevertheless he means 989b 20
something very similar to those who spoke later and who are more
manifest now.
But it is the lot of these people to be at home only with talk about
becoming, perishing, and motion, for this is just about the only sort
of thing for which they seek the sources and causes. On the other
hand, all those who pay attention to all beings, of which some are
perceptible and others are not accessible to the senses, obviously make
an investigation about both kinds. For this reason one might well spend
more time on them, dwelling on what they said well or badly that goes
to the inquiry that now lies in front of us.
989b 30 Now those who are called Pythagoreans make use of more remote
sources and elements than do those who write about nature. (The
reason is that they do not take them from perceptible things, since the
mathematical things, apart from the ones involved in astronomy, are
without motion.) Nonetheless, they do discourse about and concern
990a themselves with nature in all their work. For they generate the heavens,
and observe what becomes of its parts and attributes and doings, and
they lavish their sources and causes on these, as though they agreed
with the other writers on nature that what is is all this that is perceptible
by the senses and surrounded by what is called heaven. But the causes
and sources they speak of are, as we say, sufficient to step up also
to the higher kinds of beings, and better fitted to this than to their
accounts about nature. By what means, however, there will be motion
when the limit and the unlimited, or the odd and the even are the only
990a 1 0 things presupposed, they do not say at all, nor how without motion
and change there can be becoming and perishing, or the things done
by the things that are carried along through the heavens. What's more,
even if one were to grant them that magnitude is made out of these
things, or this were demonstrated, still, by what means will there be
some bodies that have lightness and some that have heaviness? From
the things they assume and say, they are speaking about mathematical
things no more than about perceptible ones; for which reason they
have not said anything at all about fire or earth or the other bodies
of this sort, since, I suppose, nothing that they say about perceptible
things is about them in particular.
Again, how ought one to understand number and the attributes of
990a 20 number to be causes of what is and what happens in the heavens, both
in the beginning and now, and that there is no other kind of number
besides this very number out of which the cosmos is composed? For
when, say, in some part of the cosmos there is, according to them,
opinion and due measure, and a little above or below there is injustice
and either separating or mixing, and they claim as a demonstration of
this that each of these is a number, but it turns out that in the same place
there are already several magnitudes combined since these attributes

go along with each of the various places, ought one to understand that
this is the same number, this one that is in the heavens, that every
one of these is, or another one beside this? For Plato says that it is a 990a 30
different one, even though he too assumes both these things and their
causes to be numbers, but the causes to be intelligible numbers, while
these other things are sensible numbers.lS
Chapter 9 As far as the Pythagoreans are concerned, then, let the

things now said be left alone (for it is enough to touch on them this
much) . But as for those who set up the forms, first of all, in seeking to 990b
understand the causes of the things around us, they brought in other
things, equal to these in number, as though someone who wanted to
count a smaller number of things thought he couldn't do it, but could
count them if he made them more. For the forms are just about equal
to, or not fewer than, those things in search of the causes of which they
went on from the latter to the former. For over against each particular
thing there is something with the same name, and also for the other
things besides the beings, to which there belongs a one-over-many,
both among the things around us and among the everlasting things.19
What's more, of those ways by which we show that there are forms, it
is not evident by any of them.20 For from some of them no necessary 990b 1 0
conclusion results, while from others there turn out to be forms of
1 8 See the note to 987b 2 3. Sensible numbers are just the multitudes of visible,
tangible things. The intelligible numbers meant here are not the mathematical ones, of
which the units are all alike, but the eidetic ones, the forms themselves as assemblages
of other, unlike forms. The point of this paragraph is that the Pythagoreans had not
clarified or even distinguished the inconsistent ways they used the word number.
1 9 The manuscripts are hard to make sense of for this sentence. Its point is this: while
the forms answering to the species of things around us are fewer than the things
are, the number of forms multiplies when they are posited for every kind of class
characteristic (one-over-many), such as red things, scalene triangles, etc. Aristotle
agrees that there are forms in the first sense, but not in the second.
2 0 There is a widespread myth according to which Aristotle's teachings are opposite to
Plato's. As a result, passages such as this in which he speaks of the disciples of Plato as
"we" have to be dismissed as relics of Aristotle's student days, included in his mature
writings by some inept editor. This leads to a kind of interpretation as butchery, that
hacks apart the text to preserve a point of view that had no sound evidence to begin
with. (See the introduction.) Aristotle is among those who posit forms as causes and
as beings, and for that reason he is at pains to criticize in detail the technical working
out of that doctrine.
those things which we believe do not have them. For as a result of the
arguments from the kinds of knowledge, there will be forms of all those
things of which there is knowledge, and as a result of the one-over
many there will even be forms of negations, while as a result of the
thinking of something that has been destroyed, there will be forms of
things that have passed away, since there is an image of these things.
On top of this, some of the most precise of the arguments produce
forms of relations, which we claim is not a kind in its own right, while
other ones imply the third man.21
And in general, the arguments about the forms abolish things which
we want there to be, more than we want there to be forms. For it turns
990b 20 out that not the dyad, but number, is primary, and that what is relative
is more primary than what is in its own right, as well as all those things
which certain people who took the opinions about the forms to their
logical conclusions showed to be opposed to the original sources of
things.22 What's more, by the assumption by which we say there are
forms, there will be forms not only of beings but also of many other
things. (For the object of the intellect is one thing not only as concerns
beings but also as applied to other things, and there is demonstrative
knowledge not only about thinghood but also about other sorts of
being,23 and vast numbers of other such conclusions follow.) But both
necessarily and as a result of the opinions about them, if the forms are
990b 30 shared in, there must be forms only of independent things. For things
do not share in them incidentally, but must share in each by virtue of
that by which it is not attributed to an underlying subject. (I mean, for
example, if something partakes of the double, then this also partakes
of the everlasting, but incidentally, since it is incidental to the double
to be everlasting.) Therefore, the forms will be the thinghood of things,
21 The "third man" is shorthand for an argument from an infinite regress which may
be found in Plato's Parmenides, 1 32 A-B. All five of the arguments here mentioned are
in that dialogue, and all are logical in character; Aristotle's own approach to form is
always from nature, or change, or the way the world is.
22 Platonic doctrine made the one and the dyad sources, but the logical extension
of simpleminded one-over-many arguments would force one to derive those sources
themselves from the broader class of number that includes them, or from the two-to
one ratio that links them.
23 This refers to the so-called "categories," the various senses in which something can
be said to be, not only as a thing but as a quality, quantity, relation, etc. See 1 01 7a
22-31 .
and the same things will signify thinghood there as here. Otherwise, 991 a
what would the something be that is said to be apart from the things
around us, the one-over-many? And if the forms and the things that
participate in them have the same form, there would be something
common. (For why is two one and the same thing as applied both to
destructible pairs and to those that are many but everlasting, more so
than as applied both to itself and to something?) But if the form is not
the same, there would be ambiguity, and it would be just as if someone
were to call both Callias and a block of wood "human being" while
observing nothing at all common to them.
But most of all, one might be completely at a loss about what in
the world the forms contribute to the perceptible things, either to the 991 a 1 0
everlasting ones or to the ones that come into being and perish. For
they are not responsible for any motion or change that belongs to them.
But they don't assist in any way toward the knowledge of the other
things either (for they are not the thinghood of them, since in that case
they would be in them), nor toward their being, inasmuch as they are
not present in the things that partake of them. In that manner they
might perhaps seem to be causes, after the fashion of the white that is
mingled in white things, but this argument, which Anaxagoras first,
Eudoxus later, and some others made, is truly a pushover (for it is easy
to collect many impossibilities related to this opinion).24 But surely it
is not true either that the other things are made out of the forms in any 991 a 20
of the usual ways that is meant. And to say that they are patterns and
the other things participate in them is to speak without content and
in poetic metaphors. For what is the thing that is at work, looking off
toward the forms?25 And it is possible for anything whatever to be or
become like something without being an image of it, so that whether
Socrates is or is not, one might become like Socrates, and it is obvious
that it would be the same even if Socrates were everlasting. And there
24 In the Phaedo, at 1 OSC, Socrates calls this opinion a "safe but stupid answer" about
the cause of anything. The problem is not that it puts the form into the thing, but
that it offers no adequate conception of what the form is. Aristotle will work that out
in Books VIII and IX.
25 This is the question out of which Aristotle derives his own account of the forms.
Socrates says in the Republic (477d) that we know a potency by its work, using the
same words as are in this sentence, and in the Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger defines
being as potency (24 7E), making the forms causes by ascribing life, motion, and soul
to them, and making them a combination of motion and rest (248E-249D).
would be more than one pattern for the same thing, and so too with the
forms; for example, of a human being, there would be animal and at
the same time two footed, as well as human being itself. What's more,
991 a 30 the forms will be patterns not only of the perceptible things but also
of themselves, such as the form genus, since it is a genus of forms, and
991 b so the same thing would be a pattern and an image.
Further, one would think it was impossible for the thinghood and
that of which it is the thinghood to be separate: so how could the forms
be the thinghood of things if they are separate? In the Phaedo it is put
this way: that the forms are responsible for both being and becoming.
Yet even if there are forms, still the things that partake of them do
not come into being if there is not something that causes motion, and
many other things do come into being, such as a house or a ring, of
which we say there are no forms.26 So it is clear that the other things
too admit of being and becoming by means of the sort of causes which
produce the ones just mentioned.
991 b 1 0 Again, if the forms are numbers, how would they be causes? Is it
because the beings are various numbers, this number human being,
that one Socrates, this other one Callias? Why then are those the causes
of these? And it will make no difference if the ones are everlasting
and the others not. But if it is because the things here are ratios of
numbers, as harmony is, it is clear that there is some one thing of
which they are ratios. So if this is something, as material, it is apparent
that the numbers themselves will also be particular ratios of one thing
to another. I mean, for example, if Callias is a ratio among numbers
consisting of fire, earth, water, and air, then the form too will be a
number consisting of certain other underlying things, and human
991 b 20 being itself, whether or not it is a sort of number, will still be a ratio
among numbers ofsomething, and not a number, nor would it be on this
account a certain number. What's more, from many numbers comes
one number, but in what way is one form made of forms? But if it is not
made of them but of the things that are in a number, as in ten thousand,
26 Both in Plato's dialogues and in Aristotle's writings a first way in toward the idea
of form is the pattern a craftsman has in mind when he makes something. But that
example is like a temporary scaffolding that is kicked away once a sounder structure
is built. In the Physics, the notion that a bed has a form is undermined the instant the
idea of being-at-work is introduced (1 93b 7). Trees have forms, so in a derivative way
human artisans can rework the wood.
how does it stand with the units? For if they are homogeneous, many
absurdities will follow; and also if they are not homogeneous, either
one the same as another or a whole group the same as a whole group;
for in what respect will they differ if they are without attributes?27 For
these things are neither reasonable nor in agreement with a thoughtful
viewing of the matter.
And on top of this, it is necessary to construct a different kind of
number, with which the art of arithmetic is concerned, and all those
things that are said by some to be in-between; in what way are they and
from what sources? Or by what cause are they between the things here 991 b 30
and those things? Again, each of the units in the number two comes
from some more primary dyad, yet this is impossible. Again, by what 992a
cause is a number one thing when it is taken all together? Again, on
top of the things that have been said, if the units are to differ, it would
behoove one to speak in the same way as those who say there are four,
or two, elements. For each of these people speaks of as an element
not what is common, such as body, but fire or earth, whether body is
something common or not. But as it is, one speaks as though the one
were homogeneous, just like fire or water; and if this is so, the numbers
will not be independent things. But it is clear that, if there is something
that is the one itself, and this is a source, one is meant in more than one
way, for otherwise it is impossible. 992a 1 0
Now when we want to lead things back to their sources, we set
down length as being composed of the short and the long, a certain
kind of small and large, and surface of the wide and the narrow, and
solid of the deep and the shallow. In what way, though, will the surface
have a line in it, or the solid have a line or a surface? For the wide and
the narrow are different kinds of thing from the deep and the shallow;
so just as number is not present in them either, because the many and
the few differ from these, it is clear that neither will any other of the
higher things be present in the lower. But surely neither is the wide a
class of the deep, for then a solid would be a certain kind of surface.
And from what source will the points come to be present in them? Plato 992a 20
used to fight against this class of things as a geometrical dogma, but he
called the source of the line-and he set this down often-indivisible
27 If identity and distinctness are conferred by number, they cannot already be in the
units.
lines. And yet there must necessarily be some limit of these; so from
the argument from which the line is deduced, the point too is deduced.
In general, though we are seeking wisdom about what is responsible
for the appearances, we have ignored this (for we say nothing about
the cause from which the source of change is), but supposing that we
are speaking about the thinghood of them, we say that there are other
independent things, but as for how those are the thinghood of these we
speak in vain. For " participating," as we said before, is no help. But on
992a 3 0 that which we see to be a cause in the various kinds of knowledge, for
the sake of which every intellect and every nature produces things, and
on that sort of cause which we say is one of the sources of things, the
forms do not even touch, but philosophy has turned into mathematical
things for people now, though they claim that it is for the sake of other
992b things that one ought to study them. But still, one might assume that
the underlying being which serves as material is too mathematical,
and is something to be attributed to or be a distinction within the
being or material, rather than being material; for instance, the great
and the small are just the same as what the writers on nature call the
rare and the dense, claiming that these are the first distinctions within
the underlying material, since they are a certain kind of the more and
less. And as for motion, if these are a process of moving,28 it is clear
that the forms would be moved; but if they are not, where does it
come from? For then the whole investigation about nature would be
abolished.
992b 1 0 And what seems to be easy, to show that all things are one, does
not happen; for from the premises set out, even if one grants them all,
it does not come out that all things are one, but that something is the
one itself; and not even this comes out if one will not grant that the
universal is a genus, which in some cases is impossible.29 And there
is no explanation of the lengths, surfaces, and solids that are present
with the numbers, not of how they are or could be nor of what capacity
they have; for it is not possible for them to be forms (since they are not
28 That is, if the great and small refer to a process of becoming bigger or smaller.
29 For example, being is not the genus of all the things that are, but several irreducible
genera, of which one is primary. Likewise, good is not the genus of all good things,
which are the same only by analogy. The understanding of these fruitful ambiguities
is at the heart of the argument of the Metaphysics, and begins to be worked out in
Bk. IV, Ch. 2.
numbers), nor the in-between things (since those are the mathematical
ones), nor perishable things, but this seems in turn to be some other
fourth kind.
In general, to search for the elements of whatever is without distin
guishing the many ways this is meant, is to seek what is impossible to
find, both for those inquiring in other ways and those inquiring in this 992b 20
way about what sort of elements things are made of. For out of what
elements acting is made, or being acted upon, or the straight, is just
not there to be grasped, but if of anything, it is of independent things
alone that it can possibly be. Therefore to suppose that one is seeking
or has the elements of all beings is not true. And how could anyone
learn the elements of all things? For it is clear that it is not possible for
someone to begin by knowing it beforehand. For just as it is possible
for the one who is learning to do geometry to know other things in
advance, though he does not already know any of the things of which
geometry is the knowledge and about which he is going to learn, so it
is also with other things, so if there is any knowledge of all things, of
the sort that some people say there is, he could not start out already 992b 30
knowing anything.30
And yet all learning is by means of things all or some of which are
already known, whether it is by means of demonstration or by way of
definitions (for it is necessary that one already know and be familiar
with those things out of which the definition is made), and likewise
with learning through examples. But if it happens to be innate, it is 993a
surely a wonder how we fail to notice that we have the most powerful
kind of knowledge. Furthermore, in what way will one know what
something is made of, and how will it be evident? For this too contains
an impasse: for one might dispute in the same way as about some
syllables. For some people say that za is made of s, d, and a, while
some others say that it is a distinct sound and not made of any familiar
ones. What's more, how could someone know those things of which
sense perception consists if he did not have the sense capacity? And
yet he must, if indeed the elements out of which all things are made
are the same, in just the way that composite sounds are made of the 993a 1 0
elements that belong to them.
30 This argument does not reject the idea of recollection but presupposes it. If wisdom
is conceived in a too-unified way, it leaves over nothing out of which we could begin
·
to recollect.
Chapter 10 That, then, everybody seems to be looking for the

causes spoken of in our writings on nature, and that outside of these
there is none that we could speak of, is evident even from what has
been said above. But they inquired murkily into these, and while in a
certain way all the causes have been spoken of before, in another way
they have not been spoken of at all. For the earliest philosophy about
everything is like someone who lisps, since it is young and just starting
out. Even Empedocles said that bone is by means of a ratio, and this is
what it is for it to be and the thinghood of the thing.31 But surely also
993a 20 flesh and each of the other things would have to be through a ratio in
the same way, or not even one thing. Therefore it is through this that
flesh and bone and each of the other things would have being, and
not, as he says, through the material, the fire, earth, water, and air. But
while he would necessarily concede these things if someone else said
them, he did not say them clearly. Now what concerns these things
has also been made clear above; but let us go back again over all those
things that anyone might find to be impasses about these same topics,
for perhaps out of them we might provision ourselves in some way
for the impasses that will come later.
3 1 In fragment 96 (Diels's numbering), Empedocles speaks of bone being made by

the goddess Harmony as one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and one-half fire. So
while he had no grasp of form as a cause, his words implied it.
Book II (Book a)1
lnquiry2
Chapter 1 The beholding of truth is in one way difficult, but in 993a 30

another way easy. A sign of this is that, while no one happens to be
capable of it in an adequate way, neither does anyone miss it, but each 993b
one says something about nature, and though one by one they add
little or nothing to it, from all of them put together something comes
into being with a certain stature. So if it seems that we happen to be in
the condition of the common saying, "who could miss the doorway?,"
in this way it would be easy, but to have the whole in a certain way,
and yet be incapable of part of it, shows what is difficult about it. But
perhaps, since the difficulty is of two sorts, the cause is not in the
things but in us; for in just the way that the eyes of bats are related
to the light of mid-day, so also is the intellect of our soul related to 993b 1 0
those things that are by nature the most evident of all. And it is right
to feel gratitude not only to those whose opinions one shares, but
even to those whose pronouncements were more superficial, for they
too contributed something, since before us they exercised an energetic
habit of thinking. For if there had been no Timotheus, there is much
lyric poetry we would not have had, but were it not for Phrynis, there
would have been no Timotheus. And it is the same way too with
pronouncements about truth; for we have inherited certain opinions
from certain people, but others have been responsible for bringing
them about.
And it is also right to call philosophy the knowledge of truth. For the 993b 20
end of contemplative knowledge is truth, but of practical knowledge
it is action; for even if people devoted to the active life do examine the
way things are, they do not contemplate the cause in its own right, but
1 This book is labeled "little alpha," and is an obvious insertion between Books I and Ill.
The Metaphysics is pieced together from many separate strands of related writings, but
it is assembled with great care to form a single argument. There are some overlapping
passages, and others not strictly necessary to the dialectical advance of the whole, but
no open-minded reading could confirm the judgement of those scholars who think
the parts represent different and incompatible "stages" of Aristotle's "development."
The coherence of the work is not apparent by philological analysis, but emerges
unmistakably for a serious philosophic reader. (See the Introduction.)
2 This title for Book II supplied by the translator.
30 Book II (Book a) Chapter 1
in relation to something now. But without the cause we do not know

the truth, but each thing is what it is most of all, and more so than other
things, if as a result of it the same name also belongs to those other
things. (For example, fire is the hottest thing, since it is also responsible
for the hotness of the other things.) Therefore also, what is responsible
for the being-true of derivative things is more true than they are. For
this reason the sources of the things that always are must be true in the
highest sense (for they are not sometimes true, nor is anything a cause
993b 30 for them of their being, but they are the cause of other things), so what
each thing has of being, that too it has of truth.3
994a Chapter 2 Now surely it is clear that there is some source of things
and that the causes are not infinite either in a straight line or in kind.
For it is not possible for one thing to come from another infinitely,
either as from material (such as flesh from earth, earth from air, air
from fire, and in this way without stopping), or from where the origin
of motion is (such as for a human being to be moved by the air, this
by the sun, the sun by strife, and for there to be no limit of this); nor,
similarly, cari that for the sake of which go on to infinity-walking for
994a 1 0 the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the
sake of something else, and for one thing to be for the sake of another
forever in this way-and likewise in the case of what it is for something
to be. For of in-between things, which have some last thing and some
more primary one, the more primary must be the cause of the ones
after it. For if we had to say which of the three things was the cause,
we would say the first one; for it is surely not the last one, since the last
of all is the cause of nothing, but neither is it the middle one, though it
is the cause of one thing (and it makes no difference if there is one or
more than one middle thing, nor whether there are infinitely or finitely
many). But of things infinite in this way, and of the infinite in general,
all the parts are alike middle ones down to the present one; therefore,
if there is no first thing, there is no cause at all.
994a 20 But surely it is not possible to go to infinity in the downward
direction either, of something that has a beginning above, so that out
3 Etymologically, the Greek word for truth means something like "what emerges f[om
hiddenness." It therefore applies to things as well as to knowing. This paragraph is a
first and highly compressed sketch of the structure of the Metaphysics as a whole. It is
a search for that which most of all is, as a result of which other things are.
Book I I (Book a) Chapter 2 31
of fire would come water, and out of this earth, and so forever some
other kind coming into being. For one thing comes out of another in two
ways: either as a man comes into being out of a boy by his changing,
or as air comes into being out of water. So the sense in which we say a
man comes into being out of a boy is as what has become comes out of
what is becoming, or what is complete out of what is being completed.
(For just as becoming is always between being and not being, so also
the thing that is becoming is between something that is and something
that is not; for the one who is learning is a knower coming into being,
and this is what it means to say that a knower comes out of a learner.) 994a 30
But the sense in which air comes into being out of water is by the
destruction of one of the two things. For this reason the former kind
do not turn back into one another, and a boy does not come into being
out of a man (for out of the process of becoming there does not come 994b
something that is becoming, but something that is after the process of
becoming, for so too a day comes out of morning because it is after it,
for which reason morning does not come out of a day), but the other
kind do turn back into one another. But in both ways it is impossible to
go to infinity; for of the in-between sort of beings there must necessarily
be an end, while the other sort turn back into one another, since the
destruction of one of them is the corning into being of the other. But at
the same time it is impossible for the first thing, which is everlasting,
to be destroyed; for since the process of becoming is not infinite in the
upward direction, what came into being out of a first thing that was
destroyed could not be everlasting.4
And since that for the sake of which something is is an end, and this
sort of thing is what is not for the sake of anything else, but they for the 994b 1 0
sake of it, then if there is any such last thing, there will not be an infinity,
but if there is no such thing, there will be nothing for the sake of which
it is. But those who make there be an infinite are unaware that they
abolish the nature of the good. (Yet no one would make an effort to do
anything if he were not going to come to a limit.) And there would not
be intelligence among beings; for what has intelligence always acts for
the sake of something, and this is a limit. And neither is it possible that
4 The last sentence means that even if a process of becoming began with, say, water,
and water never reappeared in the series, still the very fact that it was destroyed would
mean it could not have generated an infinite series of effects. Compare Physics 266a
1 0-266b 6.
32 Book II (Book a) Chapter 2
what it is for something to be should be led back to another definition

that has a fuller articulation; for it is always the earlier definition that
994b 20 is more and the later that is not, and what is not in the first one is not
in the next one either.5 What's more, those who say that it is abolish
knowing, since it is not possible to know until one has come to what is
indivisible; and there isn't any knowing, for how is it possible to think
what is infinite in that way? For it is not the same thing as with a line,
which does not come to .an en�f divisions but which is not possible
to think unless one stops dividing it (for which reason the one who
goes through the line as an infinity will not count up the divisions).
But in something that moves it is also necessary to think about the
material. And for nothing is it possible that it be infinite; or if it is, at
least the being-infinite of it is not an infinite series.6 But surely also if
the kinds of causes were infinite in number, neither would there be any
knowing for that reason; for we think that we know something when
994b 30 we are acquainted with its causes, but what is infinite by addition is
not possible to go all the way through in a finite time.
Chapter 3 Courses of lectures go along with one's habits; for in

995a the way that we are accustomed, in that way we think it fitting for
something to be said, and what departs from this does not seem the
same, but through lack of acquaintance seems too obscure and alien.
For what we are used to is familiar. And what great strength the
customary has, the laws show, in which the mythical and childish
things are of greater strength than knowing about them, because of
custom. Some people do not give a favorable reception to what is said
if one does not speak mathematically, others if one speaks without
giving examples, and others expect one to bring in a poet as a witness.
Some expect everything to be said with precision, while others are
995a 1 0 annoyed by precision, either because they can't keep the connections
5 By "what it is for something to be," Aristotle means (a) what a thing always is, or
continues being, and (b) all that is present in it in order that it be. The first qualification
excludes what is individual and incidental, while the second excludes what Is universal
and incomplete. The species is at the exact rung of the scale of particularity and
generality that articulates what anything is, and one does not improve it by adding
something from either side. Only self-sustaining independent beings have this kind of
articu lation.
6 Even if the material of the world were infinite in extension it would not constitute
an infinity of material causes.
Book I I (Book a) Chapter 3 33
straight or because of its hairsplitting pettiness. For precision does have

something of this sort about it, so that, just as in business agreements,
so also in reasoning it seems to some people to be ungenerous. For this
reason one must have been trained in how one ought to receive each
kind of argument, since it is absurd to be searching at the same time for
knowledge and for the direction to knowledge; and it is not possible
to get either of the two easily. Now mathematical precision of speech
is something one ought to demal,ld �t in all things, but concerning
those that do not have material. For this reason it is not a way that is
suited to nature, for presumably all nature has material. Therefore one
must first consider what nature is, for in this way it will also be clear
what the study of nature is concerned with?
7 This requirement is not picked up immediately, but is part of an array of preliminary

cautions in the woven texture of the Metaphysics. It is picked up indirectly at two of
the main structural points in the work: at 1 029a 3 3-1 029b 1 2, where the inquiry gets
going in earnest, and at 1 064a 1 0--28, where a passage from the Physics is inserted
to prepare the way to the culmination of the inquiry in Book XII.
Book III (Book B)
l mpasses1
Chapter 1 It is necessary; looking toward the knowledge that is 995a 24

being sought after, for us first to go over those things about which
one must first be at an impasse. And these are all those things about
these topics that some people have conceived in different ways, as
well as anything apart from these that they might happen to have
overlooked. And it is profitable for those who want to get through
something well to do a good job of going over the impasses. For the
later ease of passage is an undoing of the things one was earlier at an
impasse about, but it is not possible to untie a knot one is ignorant 995a 30
of. But the impasse in our thinking reveals this about the thing, for by
means of that by which one is at an impasse, one suffers in much the
same way as people who are tied up, for in both cases it is impossible
to go on forward. For this reason it is necessary to have looked at all
the difficulties beforehand, both on these accounts and because those
who inquire without first coming to an impasse are like people who are
ignorant of which way they need to walk, and on top of these things,
because one never knows whether one has found the thing sought or 995b
not. For the end is not apparent to this one, but to one who has first
been at an impasse it is clear.2 And further, one must be better off for
judging if one has heard all the disputing arguments as if they were
opponents in a lawsuit.
The first impasse is about the things that we raised questions about
in the prefatory chapters, whether it belongs to one or to many kinds
of knowledge to contemplate the causes, and whether it is only the
first sources of being at which it belongs to this knowledge to look,
or whether it is also concerned with the starting points from which
everyone demonstrates, such as whether it is possible or not to assert
and deny one and the same thing at the same time, and with other 995b 1 0
things of this sort; and if it is about being, whether one knowledge or
more than one concerns all beings, and if more than one, whether all
1 This title for Book Ill supplied by the translator.
2 This passage should be compared with the crisis in Plato's Meno, at 79E-81A, which
is an impasse about impasses.
36 Book Ill (Book B) Chapter 1
are akin or some are kinds of wisdom while others of them must be
called something else. And this itself is one of the most necessary things
to inquire about: whether one ought to say that there are perceptible
things only or also others besides these, and whether the latter are
of one kind or there is more than one kind of independent things, as
those say who make there be both the forms and the mathematical
things, between these and the perceptible things. So as we say, one
must investigate about these things, and also whether the examination
99 5 b 20 is about beings only or also the attributes that belong to beings in
virtue of themselves; and on top of this, about same and other, like
and unlike, contrariety, prior and posterior, and all the other things of
this sort about which those engaged in dialectic try to make an inquiry
by considering only what follows from accepted opinions, one must
investigate what endeavor is concerned with examining all these, and
what's more, all that is attributed to these things themselves in their
own right, and not only what each one of them is, but also whether
one is contrary to one. And one must consider whether the sources and
elements are the kinds of things or the constituents into which each
thing is divided, and if they are the kinds, whether they are the last
995 b 30 ones or the first ones attributed to the individual things, for example
whether animal or human being is a source and is more separate from
the particular thing.
But most of all, one must inquire and exert oneself about whether
there is or is not anything apart from material that is a cause in
its own right, and whether this is something separate or not, and
whether it is one or more than one in number, and whether there is
anything apart from the composite whole (and I speak of a composite
whole whenever something is predicated of the material), or nothing
apart from it, or whether there is something apart from some of
them but not from others, and what sort of beings would be of this
996a kind. Further, are the sources, both of the articulation of things and
of what underlies them, limited in either number or kind? And of
destructible and indestructible things are they the same or different,
and are they all indestructible or are those of destructible things
destructible? Furthermore, the most difficult question of all, that has in
it the greatest impasse, is whether one and being, as the Pythagoreans
and Plato said, are not anything different, but are the thinghood of
things-orwhether this is not so, but the underlying thing is something
different, friendship, as Empedocles says, or someone else fire but
Book Ill (Book B) Chapter 2 37
another water or air. And there is a question whether the sources of

things are universal or like particular things, and whether they have 996a 1 0
being potentially or at work, and in turn whether they are at work in
some other way or by way of motion; for these would also present a
considerable impasse. On top of these things, are numbers and lengths
and shapes and points certain independent things or not, and if they
are independent things, are they separated from perceptible things or
constituents in them? About ail these things it is not only difficult to
find a way to the truth, but it is not even an easy thing to articulate the
difficulties well.
Chapter 2 First, then, are the things about which we spoke first,
whether it belongs to one or to more kinds of knowledge to contem
plate all the kinds of causes. For how could it belong to one kind of 996a 20
knowledge to know sources that are not contraries? What's more, to
many beings, not all the causes belong; for in what way is a source
of motion possible in motionless things, or the nature of the good, if
everything that is good in itself and through its own nature is an end,
and a cause in the sense that for its sake other things come into being
and are, and the end and that for the sake of which is an end for some
action, while all actions include motion? Therefore among motionless
things there could not be this kind of source, nor could there be any
good-itself. For this reason too, among mathematical things nothing is
demonstrated by means of this kind of cause, nor is there any demon 996a 30
stration on account of better or worse, but no one pays any attention at
all to anything of that sort; and so on this account some of the sophists,
such as Aristippus, used to belittle mathematical demonstrations. For
in the other arts, and in the mechanical skills such as carpentry and
shoemaking, everything is accounted for because of the better and
worse, while mathematics makes no mention about what is good and 996b
bad.
But now if there are a number of kinds of knowledge of the causes,
and a different one for a different source, which of these ought one to
say is the one being sought, or who among those who have them is
most of ail a knower of the thing that is being sought? For it is possible
for all the kinds of causes to belong to the same thing; for example, with
a house, that from which the motion comes is the art or the builder,
that for the sake of which is its work, the material is earth and stones,
and the form is its articulation in speech. From the distinctions made
38 Book I l l (Book B) Chapter 2
996b 1 0 just now about what kind of knowledge is wisdom, there is reason to
apply the name to each one. For in the sense that it is the most ruling
and leading and that, like slaves, it is not even fitting for the other
kinds of knowledge to talk back to it, the knowledge of the end or the
good is of this sort (since the other things are for the sake of this), but
in the sense that it was defined as being about the first causes and the
most knowable thing, the knowledge of thinghood would be of that
sort. For of those who know the same thing in various ways, we say
that he knows it more who is acquainted with the what of the thing
by what it is, rather than by what it is not, and among those with the
former knowledge themselves, one knows it more than another, and
most of all, the one who knows what it is, rather than its size or quality
or how it acts or is acted upon by nature. And also among other things,
996b 20 about which there are demonstrations, we think that the knowing of
each of them is present at the time when we see what it is (for example,
what squaring is, that it is finding a mean proportionai,3 and similarly
in other cases), but about instances of coming into being and actions
and about every change, at the time when we see the source of the
motion, and this is different from and opposite to the end; therefore,
the contemplation of each of these causes would seem to belong to a
different kind of knowledge.
But now also about the demonstrative principles, it is a matter
of dispute whether they belong to one or more than one kind of
knowledge. By demonstrative principles I mean the common opinions
from which every one demonstrates, such as, that everything must be
996b 30 either asserted or denied, and that it is impossible for something both
to be and not be at the same time, and as many other such premises as
there are. Is there one kind of knowledge about these as well as about
thinghood,4 or different ones, and if there is more than one, to which
3 We think of "squaring" as a procedure of arithmetic, but its original meaning is the

construction of a square equal to a given oblong rectangle. The side of the square will
have the same ratio to one side of that rectangle that the other side has to it. One can
know how to find the side of the square without understanding that, as in Euclid's
proposition II, 1 4; in Euclid's Elements the understanding of that connection comes
only in proposition VI, 1 3. This example of two ways of knowing is used by Aristotle
at the beginning of Bk. II, Ch. 2, of On the Soul.
4 1n this passage, the word ousia is used in three ways: it may refer to beings as opposed
to principles or propositions, or it may single out independent things as opposed to
the various kinds of attributes that are all beings in the widest sense, and it also means
one ought one to give the name of the thing now being sought? Now
it is not reasonable that they belong to one; for why is it peculiar to
this kind of knowledge more than to geometry or any other whatever
to pay attention to these principles? So if it pertains in the same way
to any whatever, but cannot belong to them all, then just as it is not 997a
peculiar to the others, so also it is not peculiar to the one that explains
independent things to know about them. But by the same token, in
what way could there be a kind of knowledge about them? For even
now we are familiar with what each of them is. (At any rate even
the other arts use them as though familiar with them.) But if there
is a demonstrative knowledge about them, there would need to be
some underlying kind, while some of them are attributes and others of
them are axioms (since it is impossible for there to be a demonstration
about everything), for the demonstration must be from some things,
about some topic, and of some things; therefore it follows that there
would be some one class of all things that are demonstrated, since all 997a 1 0
demonstrative knowledge makes use of the axioms. But now if the
knowledge of thinghood and that about these principles are different,
which of them is by nature more authoritative and more primary?
For the axioms most of all are universal, and are starting points of
all things, and if it does not belong to the philosopher, to whom else
would it belong to consider what is true and false about them?
And in general, is there one or more than one kind of knowledge
about all beings? And then if there is not one, with what sort of
beings ought one to place this kind of knowledge? But that there is
one about them all is not reasonable; for then there would also be one
kind of demonstrative knowledge about all attributes, if every kind of
demonstrative knowledge about some underlying subject examines 997a 20
the attributes it has in its own right on the basis of common opinions.
So it concerns the same class of things to examine on the basis of the
same opinions the attributes it has in its own right. For that about
which it demonstrates belongs to one kind of knowledge, and those
things from which it demonstrates belong to one kind of knowledge,
thinghood, the way of being an independent thing, or the cause responsible for th at
condition. The common translation "substance" not only misses all these meanings,
but carries implications of its own that can only mislead and confuse. For more on
this, see the Introduction and Glossary.
whether the same one or another, so that either these, or one composed
of these, will examine the attributes.
But still, is the examination about independent things alone, or
also about the attributes of these? I mean, for example, if a solid is
an independent thing, and also lines and planes, whether it belongs
to the same kind of knowledge to know these and the attributes that
997a 30 pertain to each class, about which mathematics demonstrates, or to
a different one. For if it belongs to the same one, there would be a
certain demonstrative knowledge even about thinghood, but it does
not seem there could be a demonstration of what something is; but
if it belongs to a different one, what would it be that examines the
attributes that pertain to thinghood? For this is exceedingly difficult
to give an account of.
Again, ought one to say that there are perceptible things only, or also
others besides these, and do there turn out to be classes of independent
997b things in only one or in more than one way, as those say who speak
of the forms and the in-between things, about which they say the
mathematical kinds of knowledge are? Now the way that we say the
forms are both causes and things in their own right has been explained
in our first arguments about them; but in a number of ways these are
hard to swallow, none being less absurd than saying that there are
certain natures apart from those within the heavens, and yet to say that
these are the same as the perceptible things except that the ones are
everlasting and the others destructible. For they say there is a human
being itself, and a horse itself, and a health itself, but say nothing
997b 1 0 else, doing just about the same thing as those who say there are gods,
but having human form. For those people made nothing other than
everlasting human beings, and these do not make the forms anything
but everlasting perceptible things.S
But further, if one posits, besides the forms and the perceptible
things, the in-between things, there will be many impasses; for it is
clear that there would be lines apart from lines-themselves and per
ceptible lines, and similarly with each of the other classes. Therefore,
since astronomy is one of these classes, there will also be a certain
heaven apart from the perceptible heaven, and a sun and a moon and
5 Note that the absurdity is not positing forms, but failing to think through how they
differ from that of which they are the forms. Aristotle is not quarreling with attaching
"itself" to human being, but with saying no more than that.
Book I l l (Book B) Chapter 2 41
likewise the other things throughout the heavens. Yet how is one sup
posed to believe these things to be? For it is not reasonable that they be
motionless, but that they be in motion is completely impossible. And 997b 20
it is similar with those things about which optics concerns itself, and
also the study of harmony within mathematics. For it is also impossi
ble that these be apart from the perceptible things on account of the
same causes; for if there are perceptible things and sense perceptions
in-between, it is clear that there would also be animals between the
animals-themselves and the perishable ones.6 But one might also be
at an impasse about what sort of things these kinds of knowledge are
supposed to inquire after. For if geometry differs from land surveying
only in this, that one of them is about things we perceive and the other
is not about perceptible things, it is clear that there would also be some
sort of knowledge besides the art of medicine and besides each of the
other arts, between medicine itself and the medicine here; yet how is 997b 30
this possible? For there would also be some healthy things besides the
perceptible ones and the healthy itself. But at the same time not even
this is true, that land surveying is about perceptible and perishable
magnitudes, for then it would be destroyed when they were destroyed.
But surely neither could astronomy be about perceptible magnitudes
nor about this heaven. For neither are perceptible lines the sort of lines 998a
about which the geometer speaks (for none of the perceptible things
is straight or round in that way, for a ring touches a straight edge not
at a point but in the way that Protagoras used to say when refuting
the geometers7), nor are the motions and loops of the heavens the sort
of things about which astronomy makes its arguments, nor do points
have the same nature as the stars.
But there are some people who claim that there are these things that
are said to be between the forms and the perceptible things, but that
they are not separate from the perceptible things but in them; to go
through all the impossible consequences of this would be too much 998a 1 0
talk, but it is enough to consider even such ones as these. For it is not
6 It was assumed that all mathematical objects are between the forms and the
perceptibles, but optics and harmonics are mathematical disciplines whose objects
are perceptible things.
7 One may find the same sort of arguments, with the same purpose, in the writings
of a modern Protagorean, David Hume. See A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. II,
Sect. IV.
reasonable that it would be thus with these only, but it is clear that
the forms too would admit of being in the perceptible things (for both
of these have the same argument), yet two solids would have to be
in the same place, and they could not be motionless if they were in
moving perceptible things. And in general, for what purpose would
anyone posit that they are, but are in the perceptible things? For the
same absurdities would follow upon the aforementioned ones: there
would be a heaven apart from the heaven, except not separate but in
the same place, which is even more impossible.S
998a 20 Chapter 3 About these things, then, there is a considerable impasse

as to how one must set them down in order to come upon the truth, and
also about the sources, whether one must assume that the classes of
things are elements and sources, or rather those things out of which,
as first constituents, each thing is made. For example, the elements
and beginnings of speech seem to be those first things out of which
articulate utterances are composed, but not the common genus, speech;
and of geometrical constructions, we call elements those things of
which the demonstrations are already present in the demonstrations
of the others, either of all or of most of them. Again, of bodies, both
those who say there is more than one element and those who say there
998a 30 is one say that the things of which they are composed are the sources;
for example, Empedocles says that fire and water and the elements
that go with these are the things out of which, as constituents, beings
are made, but not that these are classes of beings. And on top of these
998b things, if anyone wants to look into the nature of anything else, say of
a bed, it is when he knows what parts it is composed of and how they
are put together that he knows its nature. So from these arguments
the classes of things would not be the sources of them, but if we know
each thing by means of definitions, and if the classes are the sources of
the definitions, then the classes must also be the sources of the things
defined. And if getting hold of the knowledge of things is grasping the
species in accordance with which they are spoken about, the genus is
certainly a source of the species. And some of the people who speak of
8 See the additional arguments given in the first paragraph of Bk. XIII, Ch. 2, and
the footnotes there. The reader may follow those notes to Aristotle's own account of
mathematical things; he agrees that they are not separate from perceptible things,
but does not grant that they are in them.
the one or being or the great and the small as elements of things seem to 998b 1 0
use them as classes. But surely it is not possible to speak of the sources
of things in both ways. For there is a single articulation of thinghood,
while the definition by means of classes would be different from that
which states the things out of which, as constituents, something is
made.
But on top of these things, even if the classes are sources as much
as one could wish, should one regard the first classes as sources, or
the last ones that are applied to the individual things? For this too is
a matter of dispute. For if it is always the universal things that are
more the sources, it is clear that these will be the highest of the classes,
since these are predicated of everything. Then there would be as many
sources of things as there are primary classes, so that being and oneness 998b 20
would be sources and the thinghood of things, since these most of all
are predicated of all things. But it is not possible for either oneness
or being to be a single genus of things. For it is necessary for each
of the things that differentiate each genus to be and to be one; but it
is not possible either to predicate the species within a genus of their
own differentiae, or to predicate the genus without its species of the
differentiae.9 Therefore, if oneness or being is a genus, no differentia
would either be or be one. But surely if they are not genera, they will
not be sources either, if the genera are sources. What's more, the in
between classes, understood as including their differentiae, would be
genera down to the individual things (but as things are, some do, others 998b 30
do not, seem to be so). And on top of these things, the differentiae are
sources still more than are the genera, but if these too are sources, there
would come to be (one might say) an infinity of sources, whether or
not one sets down the first genus as a source. 999a
But now if what is one is in fact more sourcelike, and what is
indivisible is one, and everything that is indivisible is so either in
amount or in kind, and indivisibility in kind is more primary, and
9 If we define doves as wild pigeons, the species is doves, the genus pigeons, and the
differentia is being wild. If this is a sound definition, it cannot be true that (all) wild
things are doves, or, the more important point here, that (all) wild things are pigeons.
The reason is that all characteristics by which a genus is differentiated into species are
outside the genus. Hence there cannot be any genus that includes all things, and being
cannot be understood as the class of all beings. Parmenides confirms this: if being has
only one all-comprehensive meaning, there can only be one being. Aristotle's reply
begins in Bk. IV, Ch. 2.
general classes are divided into species, then the lowest predicate
would be more of a unity; for human being is not a genus of particular
human beings. What's more, in those things in which there is a prior
and a posterior, what is in these cannot be something apart from them.
(For example, if two is the first of the numbers, there will not be some
number apart from the kinds of numbers, and likewise no shape apart
999a 1 0 from the kinds of shapes; and if there are none among these, there
would hardly be any general classes apart from the species of other
things, for of the former there seem most of all to be genera.) But
among individual things, there is not one prior and another posterior.
Yet wherever one thing is better and another worse, the better is always
more primary, so that there would not be a genus of these. So from these
things, it seems that the predicates applied directly to the individual
things are sources more than are the general classes; but then in turn,
in what way one ought to understand these to be sources is not easy
to say. For the source and cause has to be distinct from the things of
which it is the source, and has to be capable of being when separated
999a 20 from them; but why would anyone assume that there was any such
thing apart from the particulars, except because they are predicated as
universals and of all things? But then if it is for this reason, the things
that are more universal must be set down more so as sources; therefore
the first classes would be sources.
Chapter 4 But following upon these things is an impasse that is

both the most difficult of all and the most necessary to examine, close
by which the argument has now come to stand. For if there is nothing
apart from the particular things, while the particulars are infinite, how
is it possible to get hold of a knowledge of infinitely many things? For
insofar as something is one and the same, and insofar as something is
present as a universal, in this way we know everything. But if this is
necessary, and there has to be something apart from the particulars,
999a 30 the general classes of things would have to have being apart from the
particulars, either the lowest or the highest classes. But we just went
through an argument that this is impossible. Still, if as much as one
wants there is something apart from the composite (and I speak of
a composite whenever anything is predicated of the material), must
999b there be something answering to all of them, or to some of them and
not to others, or to none?
Now if there is nothing apart from the particulars, there could
be nothing intelligible, but everything would be perceptible and of

nothing could there be knowledge, unless someone claims that sense
perception is knowledge. What's more, neither could there be anything
everlasting or motionless (since all perceptible things pass away and
are in motion). But surely if there is nothing everlasting, neither could
there be coming-into-being. For there must be something that comes
into being and something out of which it comes into being, and the
last of these must be ungenerated, if the series comes to a stop and it is
impossible to come into being from what is not; but if there is becoming
and motion, there must also be a limit (for there is no infinite motion, 999b 1 0
but of every one there is a completion, and something cannot be coming
into being if it is impossible for it to have come into being; but what has
come into being must necessarily be when it has first come into being).
Further, if the material has being because it is ungenerated, much more
still is it reasonable that the thinghood has being, which at any time
the former is becoming. For if there should be neither thinghood nor
material, nothing would be at all, but if this is impossible, there must
necessarily be something apart from the composite whole, namely the
form or species. But if one sets this down as one's opinion, there is in
turn an impasse as to what cases one sets it down in and what cases
not. For that it is not so in all cases is clear; for we would not decide
that there was any house apart from the particular houses. And besides 999b 20
this, will the thinghood of all the things, say all human beings, be one?
But that's absurd, for all things of which the thinghood is one are one
being. But is the thinghood many and different? This too is illogical.
And at the same time, how does the material become each of these
things, and how is the composite both of the two?
Further, one might also be at an impasse about the sources in this
way: for if it is in kind that they are one, nothing will be one in number,
not even one-itself or being-itself. And how will there be knowing, if
there is not something that is one in all the particulars? But surely if
it is one in number, and each of the sources is one-and not, as with
perceptible things, different ones for different things (for example,
since such-and-such a syllable is the same in kind, the sources of it 999b 30
are also the same in kind, for these too are present as numerically
different)-if, then, the sources of things are one not in that way but
in number, there would not be anything else besides the elements.
For what is one in number means nothing different from what is
particular; for we speak of the particular in that way, as one in number,
1 OOOa but the universal as what applies to these. So just as, if the letters of
language were definite in number, all writing would necessarily be
just so much as the letters, there could not be two or more of the
same beings.
And an impasse no lesser than any has been neglected by both
present and earlier thinkers, as to whether the sources of destructible
and indestructible things are the same or different. For if they are
the same, in what way and through what cause are some things
destructible and others indestructible? Now some people associated
1 OOOa 1 0 with Hesiod and all those who gave accounts of the gods considered
only what was persuasive to themselves, but took no heed of us. (For
making the sources be gods and things begotten by gods, they say that
what has not tasted of nectar and ambrosia becomes the mortals; it is
clear that these names they speak of are familiar to themselves, and
yet even about the very introduction of these causes they have spoken
past us. For if the gods have contact with them for the sake of pleasure,
the nectar and ambrosia are not at all responsible for their being, but if
they are responsible for their being, how could they be everlasting and
yet need food?) But about mythological subtleties it is not worthwhile
1 OOOa 20 to inquire seriously; but on the part of those who speak by means of
demonstrations, one must learn by persistent questioning why in the
world, when things come from the same sources, some of the things
have an everlasting nature but others pass away. But since they neither
state any cause, nor is it reasonable that it be so, it is clear that there
could not be the same sources or causes of them.
For even he whom one might suppose to have spoken most con
sistently with himself, Empedocles, has also suffered the same thing.
For he sets down strife as a source responsible for destruction, but
nonetheless it would seem that this also generates things, except for
the one; for all the other things except the god come from this. At any
rate, he says
Out of them came everything, all that was and all that is;
1 OOOa 30 Trees sprouted, and men and women too, and
Beasts and birds and water-nurtured fish, and
Gods living long ages.
1 OOOb And it is clear apart from these things; for if strife were not present
in things, everything would be one, as he says. For whenever things
come together, then "strife stands farthest away." And for this reason
it follows for him that the most blessed god is less wise than others
since he does not know everything, for he does not have strife, but
knowing, Empedocles says, is of like by like.
For by earth we behold earth, by water, water, and by ether, godlike
ether,
By love, love, and strife by miserable strife.
But that from which this account started is clear: that it turns out for 1 000b 1 0
him that strife is responsible for destruction no more than for being.
And similarly, neither is friendship more responsible for being, for by
bringing things together into one it destroys other things. And at the
same time, about a cause of change itself, he says nothing except that
that's the way it is by nature.
But when strife had grown great in its limbs, and
Leapt up into honor when the time was complete,
Which is forced on them in turns by a broad-shouldered oath...
as though it were a necessity to change; but he shows no cause at
all of the necessity. Nevertheless, only he speaks consistently at least
to this extent: he does not make some beings destructible and others
indestructible, but all of them destructible except the elements. But the 1 OOOb 20
impasse now being discussed is why some things are destructible and
other are not, if they come from the same sources.
Then to the effect that there could not be the same sources, let so
much have been said; but if there are different sources, one impasse is
whether they themselves would be indestructible or destructible. For
if they are destructible, it is clear that they too must be derived from
something (since everything that passes away passes into those things
out of which it is made), so that it follows that there would be other,
more primary, sources of the sources; but this is impossible, whether
the series stops or goes on to infinity. What's more, how will there be
destructible things, if their sources are done away with? But if they are
indestructible, why will destructible things come from some of these 1 OOOb 30
things that are indestructible, but indestructible ones from others of
them? For this is not reasonable, but is either impossible or needs a
lot of explanation. Furthermore, no one has even tried to speak about 1 00 1 a
different sources, but all say that the same sources belong to all things.
But they gulp down the thing first stated as an impasse as though
taking it to be something small.
But the most difficult thing of all to examine, as well as the most
necessary for knowing the truth, is whether being and oneness are the
thinghood of things, each of them not being anything else but oneness
or being, or whether one must inquire what it is that is or is one on

the assumption that they belong to some other underlying nature. For
some people suppose that they have the former sort of nature, others
1 001 a 1 0 the latter. For Plato and the Pythagoreans suppose that neither being
nor the one is any other thing, but that this is the nature of them, that
the thinghood of each is its being-one or being-being. The others are
the writers about nature; for example, Empedocles, as though tracing
it back to something more knowable, says what the one is. For he
would seem to be saying some such thing as that it is friendship (at
any rate this is the cause of the being-one of everything), but others
say of fire, still others of air, that this is the unity and the being out
of which things are made and from which they have come into being.
And it is the same way also with those who set down the elements as
more than one, for they have to say that oneness and being consist of
1 001 a 20 just so many things as they say are sources. But it follows, if one does
not posit that oneness or being is an independent thing, that none of
the other universal things is an independent thing either. (For these
are the most universal of all things, but if there is not any one-itself
or being-itself, there could hardly be any of the other universals apart
from the particulars of which they are predicated.) What's more, if the
one is not an independent thing, it is clear that neither could number
have being as some nature separated from things (for number consists
of units, while the unit is that of which the very being is oneness). But
if there is something which itself is and is one, the thinghood of it must
be oneness and being, since there is not any other thing as a result of
which they are attributed but just they themselves.
1 001 a 30 But surely if there should be some being-itself and one-itself, there
is a considerable impasse about how there would be anything else
besides these--1 mean how beings will be more than one. For what
is other than being is not, so that, according to the argument of
1 001 b Parmenides, it necessarily follows that all things are one and that this
is being. But there is trouble both ways, for whether the one is not
an independent thing or there is some one-itself, it is impossible that
number be an independent thing. Why this is so has been said above,
if there is no one-itself; but if there is, the same impasse results as
about being. For from what source will there be another one besides
the one-itself? What's more, if the one-itself is indivisible, then by a
principle of Zeno's it would be nothing. For that which, when added
to something does not make it greater, and when subtracted from it
does not make it less, he says is not a being, obviously taking a being 1 001 b 1 0
to be a magnitude; and if it is a magnitude it is one of a bodily sort,
since this has being in every direction. With the other magnitudes,
being added to in one way will make them greater, but in another
way will not, as with a surface or a line, but with a point or an
arithmetic unit, in no way will it do so. But since he is looking at
things in a crude way, and it is possible for there to be something
indivisible, therefore in this way it has a rebuttal even against him.
For such a thing when added to something will not make it greater,
but will make there be more of them. But how indeed could there be
magnitude out of one such thing or more than one of them? For it
would be like claiming the line is made of points. But surely even if
one conceives it in such a way that, as some say, number has come 1 001 b 20
into being out of the one itself and something else that is not one,
nonetheless one must inquire why and how the thing that comes into
being will at one time be a number but at another time be a magnitude,
if the thing other than one is to be the unequal, and be the same
nature. For it is not clear how magnitude could have come into being
either from the one and this nature, or from some number and this
nature.
Chapter 5 An impasse following upon these is whether numbers,

solids, surfaces, and points are or are not independent things. For if
they are not, what being is escapes us, as well as what the thinghood
of beings is; for attributes, motions, relations, dispositions, and ratios 1 001 b 30
seem not at all to signify thinghood (since all of them are attributed
to some underlying thing, and none of them is a this). But the things
that would seem most of all to signify thinghood, namely water, earth,
fire, and air, out of which composite bodies are put together, have 1 002a
hotness, coldness, and such things as attributes, not as thinghood,
while only the body that is subject to these persists and is a being
and an independent thing. But surely the extended body is less an
independent thing than is the surface, and that less so than is a line,
and that than a unit or a point; for by these the body is limited, and
while they seem to be possible without a body, without them the body
is impossible. For this very reason, even though most people and the
earlier thinkers supposed being and thinghood to be body, with the
other things attributes of this, so that the sources of bodies would be 1 002a 1 0
the sources of beings, the thinkers who came later and seem to be wiser
than these others take the sources to be numbers. So as we are saying,

if these are not independent things, nothing at all is an independent
thing, nor is anything a being, since the attributes of these are not
worthy of being called beings.
But now if this is agreed to, that lengths and points are thinghood
more than bodies are, though we do not see what sort of bodies these
belong to (since it is impossible that they be among perceptible things),
there could not be any independent thing at all. What's more, all these
1 002a 20 seem to be divisions of bodies, in breadth, depth, or length. And on
top of this, any shape at all is equally present in the solid, or none is;
so if Hermes is not in the stone, neither is the half of the cube in the
cube in the manner of a determinate thing.lO Therefore the surface is
not in it either (since if any surface at all were, so would be this one
that delineates the half of it), and the same argument applies also to
the line, the point and the unit; so if as much as one wishes the body is
an independent thing, but these things more so than it, while it is not
possible that these are particular independent things, then what being
is and what the thinghood of beings is escape us.
In addition to the things that have been said, what concerns coming
1 002a 30 into being and destruction also turns out to be irrational. For it seems
that an independent thing, if it now is after not being before, or later
is not after having been before, undergoes these things in a way that
involves coming into being or passing away. But points, lines, and
surfaces do not admit of either coming into being of passing away,
even though they sometimes are and sometimes are not. For whenever
1 002b extended bodies touch or are divided, they at once become one when
they touch, and at once become two when they are divided. Therefore
when they are put together, something is not but has been destroyed,
and when they are divided there are things which previously were
not (for the point, which is indivisible, has surely not been divided in
two), and if things come into being and are destroyed, out of what do
they come into being? It is just about the same way as with the now
in time; for neither does this admit of coming into being and passing
away; but still there always seems to be a different one, inasmuch as
it is not an independent thing. So it is clear that it is the same way too
1 0 This apparent conclusion is denied at the end of Bk. V, Ch. 7, and more fully refuted
in Bk. IX, Ch. 6-7.
i
I
! '
with points, lines, and surfaces; for the argument is the same, since all 1 002b 1 0
of them alike are either boundaries or divisions.
Chapter 6 One might be at an impasse as to why at all one has to

look for any other things besides perceptible ones and the in-between
ones, such as those we posit as forms. If it is because the mathematical
things, while they differ from the things around us in some other way,
do not differ from them at all to the extent that there are many of them
of the same kind, so that the sources of them would not be limited
in number Gust as the sources of all the written things around us are
not limited in number either, but in kind, unless one takes the sources
of some particular syllable or utterance, of which they will be limited 1 002b 20
even in number, it is likewise with the in-between things, since there
too the things of the same kind are infinite), so that, if there are not,
apart from the perceptible things and mathematical things, some other
things of the sort that some people say the forms are, there would not
be any independent thing that is one in number as well as in kind,
nor would the sources of things be of a certain definite number except
in kind-if, then, this is necessary, it is also necessary on this account
that there be forms. For even if those who say there are forms do not
articulate the reason very well, still this is what they mean, and it is
necessary for them to say that each of the forms is an independent
thing and none of them is an attribute. But if we do set down that there 1 002b 30
are forms and that the sources of things are one in number and not in
kind, we have spoken of the impossible things that must follow.ll
In the same area as these things is questioning whether the elements
have being potentially or in some other way. For if it is in some other
way, something else would be more primary than the sources (for the 1 003a
potency is more primary than some particular cause, and everything
that has the potency need not be some particular way). But if the
elements do have being potentially; it is a possibility that none of the
beings would have being. For even what is not yet the case is capable
of being so, since what is not the case does come to be so, but none of
the things that are incapable of being so come to pass.
So it is necessary to raise both these impasses about the sources,
and one as to whether they are universal or what we call particular.
1 1 See 999 b 32-1 OOOa 4.

52 Book I l l (Book B ) Chapter 6
For if they are universals, they will not be independent things. (For
none of the common predicates signifies a this but rather an of-this
1 003a 1 0 sort, while an independent thing is a this; while if the thing predicated
in common were a this and were to be set out apart, Socrates would be
many animals-himself as well as human being and animal-if each
of them signifies something that is one and a this.) So if the sources are
universal, these thing follow; but if they are not universal but are in
the same way as particulars, there will be no knowledge, since of all
things the knowledge is universaL Therefore, if there were going to be
knowledge of them, there would be other sources prior to the sources,
predicated of them in a universal way.
Book IV (Book r)
The Study of Being as Being1
Chapter 1 There is a kind of knowledge that contemplates what is 1 003a 21

insofar as it is, and what belongs to it in its own right. And this is not
the same as any of those that are spoken of as partial, since none of the
other kinds of knowledge examines universally what pertains to being
as being,2 but cutting off some part of it, they consider this attribute,
as do the mathematical kinds of knowledge. But since we are seeking
the sources and the highest causes, it is clear that they must belong
to some nature in its own right. So if also those who were seeking the
elements of beings were in quest of these sources, the elements too
must belong to what is, not incidentally but insofar as it is. For this 1 003a 30
reason, for us too it is the first causes of being as being that must be
gotten hold of.
Chapter 2 Being is meant in more than one way, but pointing

toward one meaning and some one nature rather than ambigu
ously} And just as every healthful thing points toward health,
one thing by protecting it, another by producing it, another by
being a sign of health, and another because it is receptive of it, 1 003b
and also what is medical points toward the medical art (for one
thing is called medical by having the medical art, another by be
ing well suited to it, another by being an action belonging to the
1 This title for Book IV supplied by the translator.

2 This is one of two ways that Aristotle describes the topic of first philosophy,
or metaphysics. He also calls it the study of the highest kind of being, which is
separate and motionless. (1 026a 1 7-1 8) Many commentators find these accounts
incompatible. The latter makes metaphysics a theology, but the study of being as such,
they say, would be an ontology, seeking the common structure or lowest common
denominator of all beings. This and the following chapter explain, however, that being
as such belongs only to the highest kind of being. Only it could have the attribute of
being in its own right, rather than i ncidentally or derivatively. (See the Introduction.)
3 Aristotle has argued, beginning at 998b 22, that being is not a class that includes
all beings, but neither is it simply an ambiguous word like the English "bark." While
the meanings of being are irreducibly different, they are all governed by one primary
meaning, just as, in the following example, there would be no such thing as a healthy
diet or a healthy blood sample if there were not, in the primary sense of the word, a
healthy animal.
54 Book IV (Book 1) Chapter 2
medical art, and we shall find other things spoken of in a sim

ilar way to these), so too is being meant in more than one way,
but all of them pointing toward one source. For some things are
called beings because they are independent things, others because
they are attributes of independent things, others because they are
ways into thinghood, or destructions or deprivations or qualities of
thinghood, or are productive or generative of independent things,
or of things spoken of in relation to independent things, or nega-
1 003b 1 0 tions of any of these or of thinghood, on account of which we
even say that nonbeing is nonbeing. So just as there is one kind
of knowledge of all healthful things, this is similarly the case with
the other things as well. For it is not only about things meant in
one way that it belongs to one kind of knowledge to contemplate
them, but also about things meant in ways that point toward one
nature, for these too are in a certain manner meant in one way.
Therefore it is clear that it belongs to one kind of knowledge also
to contemplate beings as beings. And knowledge is always chiefly
about what is first, on which other things depend and through
which they are named. So if this is thinghood, the philosopher
would need to understand the sources and causes of indepen
dent things.
Now of every class that is one there is both one perception and
1 003b 20 one kind of knowledge, as the grammatical art, which is one, con
siders all utterances; and for this reason it also belongs to a kind
of knowledge that is generically one to study as many forms as
there are of being as being, and to the species of it to study their
species. But if being and oneness are one and the same nature in
that they follow upon one another, as do source and cause, though
not as being revealed in a single articulation (though it makes no
difference even if we do understand them alike, but is even more
convenient)-for "one human being" and "a human being that is"
and "a human being" are the same thing, and nothing different is
revealed by the redoubled statement that the human being is one
or that the human being that is one is, and it is clear that they
1 003b 30 are not distinct with respect to either coming into being or passing
away, and similarly with oneness, so that obviously the addition in
these statements signifies the same thing, and what is one is noth
ing different aside from what is, while further the thinghood of each
thing is not incidental but is likewise the very thing that something
Book IV (Book 1) Chapter 2 55
is4__therefore, just as many forms as there are of oneness, so many

also are there of being. It belongs to a kind of knowledge that is
generically the same to consider what pertains to what these are; I
mean, for example, about sameness and similarity and other such
things. And just about all opposites lead back to this starting point; 1 004a
but let these have been exantined by us in the passages about con
traries.5
And there are as many parts of philosophy as there are kinds of
thinghood, so that there must necessarily be among them some part
that is primary and some part that follows upon it. For being starts right
out already having classes, on account of which the kinds of knowledge
also follow along with these. For the philosopher is described just as
the mathematician is, since this study too has parts, and there is a
certain first and second kind of knowledge, and others in sequence
among mathematical things.
But since it belongs to one study to examine opposites, while 1 004a 1 0
manyness is opposite to oneness, it belongs to one study to examine
negation and deprivation since what is examined in both cases is the
one thing of which there is a negation or deprivation. For we either
say simply that that one thing is not present, or that it is not present in
some class; in the latter case a difference is attached to the one thing
aside from what is in the negation, since the negation is the absence
of it, but in the deprivation some underlying nature comes along to
which the deprivation is attributed. Therefore also the things opposite
to the ones mentioned, otherness and dissimilarity and inequality, and
as many other things as are spoken of as consequences of these, or of
manyness and oneness, belong to the kind of knowledge mentioned 1 004a 20
for their being known. And among these is also oppositeness, since
oppositeness is a certain kind of difference and difference a kind of
otherness. So since oneness is meant in more than one way, these too
will be meant in more than one way, even though it belongs to one
study to know them all. For it is not when something is meant in more
than one way that the kinds of knowledge are different, but when the
4 An atomist would deny both of Aristotle's claims here, asserting not only that a
being such as an animal is really many, but that its thinghood is an incidental result
of collisions and adhesions.
5 The reference is unknown. There is an extended discussion of the topics mentioned
here in Bk. X, Ch. 3-9.
56 Book IV (Book r) Chapter 2
meanings neither refer back directly to a single one nor point toward
a single one. But since they do all refer back by pointing toward a
primary meaning, as whatever is called one points toward the primary
unity, one must likewise say that this holds also concerning sameness,
difference, and contraries; so having distinguished in how many ways
each of them is meant, in this way one must give an account of how
each one is intended to point toward that which is the primary instance
1 004a 30 of each attribute. For some point toward it by having it, others by
making it, and still others will be meant according to other such ways.
It is clear, then, that it belongs to one kind of knowledge to have a
reasoned account about these things and about thinghood (and this
was one of the things contained among the impasses).
1 004b And it belongs to the philosopher to be capable of considering all
things. For if it does not belong to the philosopher, who will it be who
examines whether Socrates and Socrates sitting down are the same,
or whether one thing is contrary to one thing, or what a contrary
is, or in how many ways it is meant? And it is the same with the
other such things. So since these things are attributes of oneness as
oneness and of being as being in their own right, but not insofar as
things are numbers or lines or fire, it is clear that it belongs to that
kind of knowledge to know what they are as well as the attributes
of them. And those who do examine these topics go wrong not in
1 004b 1 0 the sense that they are not philosophic, but because thinghood, to
which they pay no attention, is prior. Seeing that, just as there are also
attributes proper to number as number (such as oddness, evenness,
commensurability, equality, being greater, and being less) and these
belong to numbers both on their own and in relation to one another
(and similarly there are other attributes proper to what is solid and
either motionless or moving, either weightless or having weight), so
too to being as being certain attributes are proper, it is these about
which it belongs to the philosopher to investigate the truth. Here is a
sign of this: those who engage in dialectic and the sophists slip into the
same outward appearance as the philosopher. For sophistry is wisdom
1 004b 20 in appearance only, while dialectic discourses about everything, and
being is common to all things, so it is clear that they discourse about
these topics just because they are proper to philosophy, for sophistry
and dialectic turn themselves to the same class of things as philosophy,
but it differs from one of them in the way its power is turned, and from
the other in the choice of a way of life it makes; dialectic is tentative
Book IV (Book r) Chapter 3 57
about those things that philosophy seeks to know, and sophistry is a

seeming without a being.
Further, one of the two rows of corresponding contraries is a list
of deprivations, and they all lead back to being and nonbeing, or
to oneness and manyness, as, for example, rest belongs to oneness
and motion to manyness, and almost everyone agrees that beings and 1 004b 30
thinghood are put together out of contraries. At least they all say that
the sources are contraries, since some say they are the odd and the
even, others the hot and the cold, others the limit and the unlimited,
and others friendship and strife. And all the other things obviously
lead back to oneness and manyness (for let the derivation be granted 1 005a
by us), while the sources received from the other thinkers also fall
wholly within these classes. So it is clear from these things too that it
belongs to one kind of knowledge to study being as being. For all things
either are contraries or are derived from contraries, and the origins of
the contraries are oneness and manyness. But these belong to one kind
of knowledge, whether they are meant in one sense, or even if they are
not, as presumably the truth has it. But notwithstanding that oneness
is meant in more than one way, the other ways will be meant to point
toward the primary meaning, as will, similarly, the contraries, even if
being or oneness is not a universal that is the same in every instance
nor anything separate, as presumably they are not, but rather some 1 005a 1 0
meanings of them point toward a single one, while others are in a
series successively derived.
For this reason it does not belong to the geometer to study what
contrariety or completeness or oneness or being or sameness or differ
ence are, except as based on a hypothesis. That, then, it belongs to one
kind of knowledge to study being as being and the things that belong
to it insofar as it is being, is clear, and that the same contemplative
study is about not only independent things but also what belongs to
them, the ones mentioned as well as what is prior and posterior, genus
and species, whole and part, and the other such things.
Chapter 3 One must discuss whether it belongs to one kind of

knowledge or to different ones to be concerned with the things that 1 005a 20
are called axioms in mathematics as well as with thinghood. And it
is evident that the inquiry about these things belongs to one kind of
knowledge and that this is the one that belongs to the philosopher;
for they belong to all beings and not to some particular class separate
from the rest. And everyone uses them, because they belong to being
as being, and each class of things is a class of beings; but people use
them only so far as is sufficient for them, and this is as far as the class of
things extends about which they are carrying out demonstrations. So
since it is clear that they belong to all things insofar as they are beings
(since this is what is common to them), the study of the one who
knows about being as being is also about these things. For this reason,
1 005a 30 no one who is engaged in particular kinds of inquiry says anything
about them, whether they are true or not, neither the geometer nor
the arithmetician, though some of those who study nature do, and do
so appropriately; for they suppose that they alone inquire about the
whole of nature and about being. But since there is something still
higher than what is natural (for nature is one particular class of being),
the inquiry about these axioms would belong to the contemplative
1 005b study that is universal and directed toward the primary kind of being.
The study of nature is a kind of wisdom too, but not the primary one.
However much some of those who speak about truth try to say in what
way one must receive it, they do this through a lack of education in
the arts of logical analysis; for one must arrive already knowing about
these things, and not find them out while studying.6
So it is clear that it belongs to the philosopher and the one who
studies all thinghood, insofar as it is by nature, to investigate also about
the starting points of demonstrative reasoning; and it is appropriate
for the one who most of all knows each class of things to be able to
1 005b 1 0 state the most certain sources of what he is concerned with, so that the
one who knows about being as being would be able to state the most
certain sources of all things. And this is the philosopher. And the most
certain of all principles is that about which it is impossible to be in
error; for such a principle must be the best known (since all people are
deceived about things they do not know) and nonhypothetical. For
that which is necessary for one who understands any of the beings
whatever to have is not a hypothesis; and that which is necessary for
one who knows anything whatever to know is necessary for him to
arrive having.
6 In Bk. II, Ch. 3, this same point is made in the context of whether mathematical
precision is appropriate in all kinds of argument. Here it has the effect of setting the
study of logic outside of and preparatory to the properly philosophic studies, among
which metaphysics is primary and physics secondary.
Book IV (Book f') Chapter 4 59
That, then, such a principle is the most certain of all, is obvious;

what it is, after this prelude, let, us state. It is not possible for the
same thing at the same time both to belong and not belong to the same 1 OOSb 20
thing in the same respect7 (and as many other things as we ought to
specify in addition for the sake of logical difficulties, let them have been
specified in additionS). And this is the most certain of all principles,
since it has the distinction mentioned. For it is impossible for anyone
at all to conceive the same thing to be and not be, as some people think
Heracleitus says.9 For it is not necessary that someone take what he
says into his understanding. And if contraries cannot belong at the
same time to the same thing (and let the usual things be specified in
addition for us in this proposition too), and an opinion is contrary to
the opinion that contradicts it, it is clear that it is impossible for the
same person at one time to believe the same thing to be and not be. 1 005b 30
For one who is in error about this would have contrary opinions at the
same time. For this reason everyone who demonstrates traces things
back to this as an ultimate opinion, since this is by nature a source even
of all the other axioms.
Chapter 4 There are some people who, as we say, themselves claim 1 006a
that it is possible for the same thing to be and not be, and also claim that
it is possible to conceive something this way. And in fact many of the
writers about nature use this way of speaking. But we have just taken
it as understood that it is impossible to be and not be at the same time,
and by means of this we have shown that this is the most certain of all
principles. Yet some people expect even this to be demonstrated, but on
account of lack of education, for it is a lack of education not to know of
what one ought to seek a demonstration and of what one ought not. For
it is impossible that there be a demonstration of absolutely everything
(since one would go on to infinity, so that not even so would there be
7 The axioms about which this chapter speaks are sometimes called "laws of thought."
This formulation already makes it clear that Aristotle considers them principles that
govern being rather than thinking.
8 Examples of these hairsplitting difficulties are given by Socrates in Plato's Republic,
4 36B-437A.
9 See especially fragments 32, 51, and 62 in the Diels numbering. Heracleitus uses the
tension of naked and unexplained contradictions to shock the hearer out of superficial
habits of thought. See also 1 01 Oa 1 0-1 6 and note.
1 006a 1 0 a demonstration), and if there are certain things of which one ought
not to seek a demonstration, these people are not able to say what they
think would be of that kind more than would such a principle.
But even about this there are ways to demonstrate that it is impos
sible by means of refutation, if only the one disputing it says something;
if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek an argument to meet someone
who has no argument, insofar as he has none, for such a person, insofar
as he is such, is from that point on like a plant. I say that demonstrat
ing by means of refutation is different from demonstrating because the
one demonstrating would seem to require from the outset the thing
to be shown, while if someone else is responsible for such a require
ment, there would be a refutation rather than a demonstration. And
the starting point for all such arguments is not the demand that one
1 006a 20 say something either to be or not to be (for perhaps one might suppose
that this would require from the outset the thing to be shown), but
that what he says must mean something to both himself and someone
else; for this is necessary, if he is going to say anything. For if this is
not the case, there would be no argument with such a person, neither
by himself in relation to himself, nor with anyone else. But if someone
grants this, there will be a demonstration, for there will already be
something determinate. But the one responsible for it is not the one
demonstrating but the one who submits to it, for while doing away
with reason he submits to reason. Furthermore, the one who concedes
this has conceded that somethmg is true without demonstration.lO
In the first place, then, it is clear that this very thing is true, that
1 006a 30 the words be or not be mean something definite, so that not everything
could be so and not so. Further, if "human being" signifies one thing,
let this be " two-footed animal."ll Now by signifying one thing, I mean
1 0 This beautiful passage sometimes overshadows the rest of the chapter. One might
think that by choosing not to speak, one could avoid the necessity of refraining
from self-contradiction. But without such a principle, one could not even have any
experience, as the rest of the chapter shows. Agreeing to speak is only required to
make the necessity of the principle of contradiction manifest, without obliging anyone
to assume that principle from the outset.
1 1 Since Aristotle elsewhere gives better definitions of a human being, that are just
as brief, why does he use this one here? He does sometimes use nonsense definitions
(e. g., at 1 029b 27"'--8) to keep a line of argument distinct, and this one does recall
Academic jokes about "featherless bipeds," but there is a subtle and serious point
underlying it. Aristotle has just compared the one who refuses to speak to a plant,
and later in this chapter (1 008b 1 4-1 8) argues from footedness to choices to implicit
this: if this is a human being, then if anything is a human being, this will
be its being-human. (And it makes no difference if one says it means
more than one thing, but only a limited number, since one could set 1 006b
down a different word for each formulation; I mean, for instance, if one
says that "human being" means not one thing but many, of which the
definition of one would be "two-footed animal," while there would
also be a number of others, but limited in number, then one could set
down a special name for each of the definitions. But if one were not
to posit this, but said it meant infinitely many things, it is clear that
there would be no definition; for not to mean one thing is to mean
nothing, and when words have no meaning, conversation with one
another, and in truth, even with oneself, is abolished. For it is not 1 006b 1 0
possible to think without thinking one thing, so if thinking is possible,
one could set down one name for this thing.) So let there be, as was
said at first, some meaning for the name, and one meaning. Now it
is not possible that being-human should mean just exactly not being
human, if "human being" not only signifies something belonging to
one thing but also one meaning. (For we do not regard what belongs
to one thing as having one meaning, since in that way even educated,
white, and human would mean one thing, so that all things would be
one, since they would be synonyms.)
And it will not be possible to be and not be the same thing other
than ambiguously, as in the case that what we call "human being," 1 006b 20
other people were to call "not human being"; but the thing raising
an impasse is not this, whether it is possible for the same thing at the
same time to be and not be a human being in name, but in respect to the
· thing. Now if "human being" and "not human being" mean nothing
different, it is obvious that not being human will be nothing different
from being human, so that being human would be not being human,
since they would be one. For this is what it means to be one thing, as
are a robe and a cloak, that the meaning of the definition is one; and
if they are to be one, being human and not being human must mean
one thing. But it was shown that they mean different things. So it is
necessary, if it is true to say that something is a human being, that it
be a two-footed animal (since this was what "human being" was to 1 006b 30
philosophic opinions. The necessary sequence from two-footed animal to rational

animal is traced in Erwin Straus's splendid essay "The Upright Posture," in his book
Phenomenological Psychology (Basic Books, 1 966).
62 Book IV (Book I) Chapter 4
mean); but if this is necessary, it is not possible for the same thing not
to be a two-footed animal (for this is what it means to be necessary, that
it be impossible for something not to be). Therefore it is not possible
for it to be true at the same time to say that the same thing is and is not
a human being.
1 007a And the same argument also applies to not being a humanbeing. For
to be a human and not to be human mean different things, if to be white
and to be human are different; for the former is much more opposed
to being human than the latter is, and therefore means something
different. And if someone is going to say that "white" means one and
the same thing as "human being," we in turn will say just the same
thing that was said before, that all things would be one, and not only
opposites. But if this is not possible, then what was said follows, if the
person being questioned gives an answer. But if, when the question is
1 007a 1 0 asked simply, he also gives denials, he is not answering the question.
For nothing prevents the same thing from being human and white and
a countless multitude of other things; but nevertheless, upon being
asked if it is true to say that this is a human being or not, one must
answer the one thing meant and not give the extra answers that it is
also white and big. For it is not even possible to go through all the
attributes, since they are infinite, so then let them all be gone through
or none. So likewise; even if the same thing is human and not human
ten thousand times over, one ought not to give an extra answer to the
question whether it is a human being, saying that it is at the same time
also not a human being, unless one must also answer in addition as
many other things as incidentally go along with it, both as many as it
1 007a 20 is and as many as it is not; but if one does this, there is no conversation.
In general, those who say this do away with thinghood and what
it is for something to be. For it is necessary for them to say that all
things are incidental, and that there is not anything which is the very
thing it is to be human or to be an animal. For if there is to be anything
which is the very thing it is to be a human being, this will not be not
being-human or being not-human (in fact these are negations of it); for
there was one thing that it meant, and this was the thinghood of some
particular thing. But to signify thinghood is to mean that nothing else
is the being of it. But if the very thing that it is to be human is the same
as the very thing that it is either not to be human or to be not human,
1 OO?a 30 then something else would be the being of it, so that they would have
to say that nothing has any such defining articulation, but all things
are incidental; for in this respect thinghood and what is incidental are
distinguished. For whiteness is incidental to a human being because,
even if he is white, white is not the very thing that he is.
But if all things are meant as incidental, there will be no first
thing about which they are meant, if the incidental always signifies
a predication about some underlying subject. Therefore it must go 1 007b
on to infinity. But that is impossible, since no more than two things
are intertwined; for what is incidental is not incidental to something
incidental, unless it is because both are incidental to the same thing. I
mean, for instance, that the white thing is educated and this is white
because both are incidental to a human being. But it is not the case with
the educated Socrates that both things are incidental to something else.
So since some things are spoken of as incidental in the latter way and
others in the former, all those that are meant in the latter way, in which
whiteness is incidental to Socrates, do not admit of being infinite on
the higher side, such that something else could be incidental to the 1 007b 1 0
white Socrates; for no one thing comes into being out of all of them.
But neither would anything else be incidental to whiteness, such as
being-educated; for this is no more incidental to that than that is to
this, and at the same time it was distinguished that some things are
incidental in this way but others in the way that being educated is
incidental to Socrates. For all those of the latter kind, the incidental
is not incidental to the incidental, but rather for those of the former
kind, so not everything will have been meant as incidental. Therefore
there will also be something signifying thinghood. But if this is so,
it has been shown that it is impossible for contradictory things to be
attributed at the same time.12
What's more, if contradictory things are all true of the same thing
at the same time, it is obvious that all things will be one. For the same 1 007b 20
thing would be a battleship and a wall and a human being, if something
admits of being affirmed or denied of everything, as it must be for those
1 2 The "law of contradiction" has now been taken a step deeper than the way it
first came to sight. Even if the world consisted of random collections of changing
attributes, nothing could be and not be the same thing at the same time and in the
same respect. But thinghood brings with it enduring unity. Something is or is not a
human being simply, for as long as it is at all, and the two qualifications (same time
and same respect) need not be added.
who repeat the saying of Protagoras.13 For if the human being seems
to someone not to be a battleship, it is clear that he is not a battleship;
and so he also is one, if the contradictory is true. And so the claim
of Anaxagoras comes true, that all things are mixed together, so that
nothing is truly any one thing. They seem, then, to be talking about
the indeterminate, and though supposing they are talking about what
is, they are talking about what is not; for the indeterminate is that
which has being potentially, and not in full activity. But surely they are
1 007b 3 0 obliged to state either the assertion or the denial of everything about
everything; for it is strange if its own denial belongs to each thing,
while the denial of something else that does not belong to it would not
belong to it. I mean, for example, if it is true to say that a human being
is not a human being, it is clear that he also either is a battleship or is
not a battleship. Then if the assertion can belong, then necessarily the
denial can too; while if the assertion does not belong, then the denial
1 008a at any rate would belong more than would the thing's own denial.
So if even that denial belongs, the denial of the battleship would also
belong, and if that can, then so can its assertion.
These things follow, then, for those who make this argument, and
it also follows that it is not necessary either to assert or to deny
something. For if it is true that it is a human being and is not a
human being, it is clear that it will also be neither a human being nor
a nonhuman being. For there are two denials for the two statements,
and if the former pair makes one claim composed of both, the latter
would also be one claim opposite to it.
Further, either things are this way about everything, and it is both
white and not white, and something that is and something that is not,
1 008a 1 0 and assertions and denials in a similar way apply to the rest, or this is
not so but applies to some things and not to others. And if it does not
apply to everything, these exceptions would be agreed to; while if it
does apply to everything, again either to all things that the assertion
applies, the denial does as well, and to all things that the denial applies,
the assertion does as well, or to those to which the assertion applies, the
denial does too, while to those to which the denial applies, the assertion
does not apply to all. And if it is this way, there will be something that
1 3 "A human being is the measure of all things--of the things that are, that they are,
and of the things that are not, that they are not."
is unqualifiedly not the case, and this would be an established opinion;

and if what is not the case is something established and known, the
opposite affirmation would be more known. But if it is likewise also
necessary to assert everything that is denied, it must either be true to
state them separately, for example that something is white and in turn 1 008a 20
that it is not white, or not. And if it is not true to state them separately;
one is not even saying these things, and in fact one is not anything (for
how could nonbeings utter a sound or walk?), and all things would be
one, just as was said before, and the same thing will be a human being
and a god and a battleship and the contradictories of these. (For if it is
similar with each thing, there will be no difference of one from another;
for if something were to differ, that would be true and peculiar to it.)
And likewise, even if something admits of being true separately, what
was said follows, and in addition to this, that everyone would be right
and everyone would be wrong, and one agrees that one is wrong. But 1 008a 30
at the same time it is clear that the investigation on the part of this
person is about nothing, since he says nothing. For he says neither
that it is this way or that it is not this way, but that it both is and is not
this way, and then in turn he states the denial of both, and says that it
neither is nor is not this way, for if that were not so, something would
already be determinate.
Yet if whenever the assertion is true, the denial is false, and if this is
true, the assertion is false, it would not be possible truly to assert and
deny the same thing at the same time. But perhaps one might say that 1 008b
this is what was assumed at the outset.
Yet can it be that the one who conceives that something either is or
is not a certain way is in the wrong, while the one who conceives it
both ways is in the right? For if he is in the right, what would it mean
that the nature of beings is of this kind? But if he is not in the right, but
more in the right than the one who conceived things in the former way,
beings would already be a certain way; and this would be true, and not
at the same time also not true. But if everyone alike is both in the wrong
and speaks the truth, it will not be possible for such a person to utter
or say anything; for at the same time he says both these things and not 1 008b 1 0
these things. But if one conceives nothing, but alike believes and does
not believe, how would he be in any different condition from plants?
And from this most of all it is obvious that no one is in this condition,
neither anyone else nor those stating this argument. For why does he
walk to Megara and not sit still, when he thinks he ought to walk? And
why does he not march straight into a well in the morning, or straight
over a cliff, if it happens that way, but obviously take care, as though
not believing that falling was both good and not good? Therefore it
is clear that he does conceive of one thing as better and the other as
not better. But if this is so, it is necessary that he also conceive of one
1 008b 20 thing as a human being and another as not a human being, and one
thing as sweet and another as not sweet. For he does not seek after
and conceive of all things equally when, supposing that it is better to
drink water or see some human beings, he thereupon seeks after them;
and yet he would have to, if the same thing were alike both a human
being and not a human being. But, just as was said, there is no one who
does not obviously take care about some things and not about others;
therefore, as it seems, everyone conceives things to be simply a certain
way, if not about everything, at least about what is better and worse.
And if they do so not knowing but having opinion, one ought to be
much more concerned about the truth, just as one who is sick ought to
1 008b 30 be more concerned about health than one who is healthy. For one who
has an opinion, as compared with the one who has knowledge, is not
disposed in a healthy way toward truth.
On top of this, if all things are so and not so as much as one could
wish, still at least the more and the less are present in the nature of
things. For we would not say that two and three are even in just the
same way, nor that the one who thinks four things are five is just as
wrong as the one who thinks they are a thousand. So if they are not
equally wrong, it is clear that one of the two is less wrong and therefore
1 009a more right. Then if what is more is nearer, there would be something
true to which what is more right is nearer. And even if there is not, still
there is already something more stable and more trustworthy, and we
would be set free from the anarchic argument that prevents anything
from being made definite in our thinking.
Chapter 5 As a consequence of the same opinion, there is also the

pronouncement of Protagoras,l4 and they must both alike either be so
or not be so; for if all opinions and appearances are true, it is necessary
1 009a 1 0 that all things be at the same time both true and false (for many people
conceive of things that are contrary to one another, and consider those
1 4 See note to 1 007b 23.

who do not believe the same things as themselves to be wrong, so that

the same thing must both be and not be), and if thls is so, all opinions
must be true (for people who are wrong and those who are rightbelieve
things opposite to one another, so if things are this way, everyone is
right). So it is clear that both of these arguments are consequences of the
same thinking. But the same way of going about things is not possible
in every encounter; for some people need persuasion while others
need brute force. For all those who believe this way from being at an
impasse in thought, their ignorance is easy to cure (for the engagement
is not with their argument but with their thinking); but for those who 1 009a 20
argue for the sake of arguing, the remedy for them is a refutation of
their exact vocal and verbal argument.
For those who are at an impasse, this opinion has arisen from
perceptible things, that contradictories and contraries are present at
the same time, since they see opposites come into being out of the
same thing. So if what is not cannot come to be, the thing was from
the beginning both ways alike, just as Anaxagoras says everything is
mixed in everything, and Democritus too. For he says that both the
void and the full are alike present in any part of things whatever, even
though one of these is as being and the other as nonbeing. To those who 1 009a 30
believe on these grounds, then, we shall say that in a certain way they
speak rightly, but in another way they go wrong. For being is meant in
two ways, so that there is a way in which it is possible for something
to come into being out of what is not, and a way in which it is not,
and the same thing at the same time can both be and not be, but not in
the same respect. For it is possible for the same thing at the same time
to be contrary things potentially, but not in full activity. And what's
more, we shall expect them to understand that there is among beings a
certain other kind of independent thlng to which there belongs neither
motion nor destruction nor any becoming at all.
And similarly, for some people the truth about appearances has 1 009b
come out of perceptible things. For they thlnk it is not appropriate
that what is true be judged by manyness or fewness, while the same
thing seems to some of those who taste it so be sweet but to others to
be bitter, so that if everyone were sick or everyone were insane while
two or three people were well or had sense, these latter would seem
to be sick or insane and the others would not. Further, opposite things
appear to be the case about the same things to many of the animals and
to us, and to each person himself as compared with himself, the same
things do not always appear to be so as a result of sense perception.

1 009b 1 0 Which sort among these are true or false is not clear; for the ones are
no more true than the others, but just like them. For this reason, in fact,
Democritus says that either nothing is true or at any rate things are
obscure to us.
But in general, because of assuming that knowledge is sense per
ception, and that this in turn is a process of being altered, people say
that the appearance that comes from sensing is necessarily true; for it
is from these reasons that both Empedocles and Democritus, as well
as, so to speak, each of the others has become vulnerable to opinions of
this sort. For Empedocles says that those who change their condition
change their knowledge, "for wisdom grows for humans according to
1 009b 20 what is present." And in other verses he says,
However much change comes into their natures, just that much
Does it always happen to them to think changed thoughts.
And Parmenides declares himself in the same way:
For as at any time is the composition of the much-twisted limbs,
Thus is intellect present to humans; for it is the very same thing
That thinks, the nature of the limbs both in all humans and in
Each one, since its thought is what is more in its mixture.
. And a blunt remark of Anaxagoras to some of his friends is also
remembered, that beings would be for them however they conceive
them. And people also say that Homer seemed to have this opinion,
1 009b 30 because he made Hector,15 when he was knocked out by a blow, lie
"thinking changed thoughts," as though even those who are delirious
are thinking, just not the same things. So it is clear that, if both are
processes of thinking, the beings too are at the same time so and not
so. And it is in this respect that what follows is most harsh: for if those
who most of all have seen the truth that is accessible-and these are
those who seek it most and love it most-if they have such opinions
and declare these things about truth, how will this not be enough to
make those who are trying to philosophize lose heart? For seeking the
1 01 Oa truth would be a wild goose chase.
Now the cause of their opinion is that they were inquiring into
the truth about beings, but they assumed that the only beings were
perceptible things; but among these the nature of the indeterminate
1 5 Actually Epeius (Iliad XXIII, 689).

Book IV (Book 1) Chapter 5 69
is heavily present, and the sort of being that we described. For this
reason, while they speak reasonably, they do not speak the truth (for
it fits better to say it this way than the way Epicharmus spoke of
Xenophanes16). And further, it was because of seeing all nature around
us in motion, while about what is changing nothing is true, or at least
does not admit of being true about what is wholly changing in every
way. For out of this conception the most extreme opinion of those 1 01 0a 1 0
mentioned burst into bloom, that of the people who announce that
they are Heracleiteans,l7 and of the sort that Cratylus held, who at
last believed that it was necessary to say nothing but only moved his
finger, and who censured Heracleitus for saying that it is not possible
to step into the same river twice, since he believed it is not possible
even to step into it once.
Now we too will say in response to this argument that there is some
reason for them to believe that what is changing, when it is changing,
does not have being. It is, however, something disputable, since a thing
that is losing something has some of what it is losing, and a thing
must already be something of what it is becoming. And in general, if 1 0 1 0a 20
something is being destroyed, there will be present something that is,
and if something is coming into being, there must be something out of
which it is coming into being and something by which it is generated,
and this cannot go on to infinity. But passing over those things, let
us say these: that to change in quantity is not the same as to change
what sort of thing something is, so letting something not stay constant
with respect to size, we still recognize everything on account of its
form. What's more, those who conceive things this way deserve to be
censured because, having seen that things are in this condition with a
lesser number even of the perceptible things themselves, they declared
that it is the same way for the whole heaven; for the place around us in
the sensible world is the only one that is constantly in a state of passing
away and coming to be, but this is, so to speak, not even a piece of the 1 0 1 0a 30
whole, so that it would have been more just if they had acquitted these
1 6 Apparently, that he spoke truly but unreasonably.

1 7 See 1 005b 24-26 and note. Heracleitus was most famous for such paradoxes as
"everything is in flux" and the one about the river that is quoted below, to which
those who adopted his name were attracted. In fact, however, the central idea in his
writings is that of the logos which brings stability out of the midst of flux, a thought
very close to Aristotle's own idea of being-at-work.
70 Book IV (Book f') Chapter 5
things on account of those instead of condemning those on account of

these. And further, it is obvious that we shall also say to them the same
things that were said earlier; for that there is some motionless nature
must be shown to them and they must be convinced of it. And in fact
it follows for those who say everything is and is not at the same time
that they should say that everything is at rest rather than in motion; for
there is not anything into which anything can change, since everything
1 01 Gb belongs to everything.
But as far as truth is concerned, that not every appearance is true is
because, in the first place, even if the perception, at least of the proper
object of each of the senses,18 is not false, still appearance is not the
same thing as perception. Then too, it is worth wondering at if they
are at an impasse about this: whether magnitudes are of the amount or
colors of the sort that they appear to be to those far away or those up
close, or whether they are the way they appear to the healthy or to the
sick, and whether things are heavier that seem so the weak or to the
strong, and whether those things are true that seem so to those who
1 01 Gb 1 0 are asleep or those who are awake. That they do not really believe it
is obvious; at any rate, no one, even if he thinks he is in Athens one
night when he is in Libya, goes to the Athenian town hall. And about
the future too, as Plato says,19 surely the opinion of the doctor and
that of an ignorant person are not alike authoritative about, say, who
is or is not going to get well. Further, among the senses themselves, the
perceptions of an alien or a proper attribute are not alike authoritative,
nor are those by a similar sense and the proper sense itself,20 but about
color, sight is authoritative, not taste, and about flavor, taste is, not
1 8 See On the Soul 41 8a 8-1 7. This view is a reversal of Democritus's famous

saying that all immediately perceived qualities, such as sweet, are only conventions.
Modern thinkers such as Galileo, Descartes, and Locke dismiss them again as merely
"subjective," sometimes calling them secondary qualities. In the twentieth century,
Husserl and others again reassert the primacy of sensory experience.
1 9 Theaetetus, 1 77C-1 79B. This passage is far-reaching, establishing the good as
neither relative nor subjective. Aristotle too, in the Nicomachean Ethics (1 1 34b 24-
35), says that there is a natural justice, easily distinguished from customs about right
and wrong.
20 Examples of the two preceding clauses might be these: a lemon looks both bitter
and yellow, and both smells and tastes bitter. The second judgement of the eye, and
the second judgement of the bitterness, are the ones we give more credence to.
Book IV (Book I) Chapter 6 71
sight, each of which at the same time about the same thing never says
that it is simultaneously so and not so. But not even at a different time 1 0 1 0b 20
does one of the senses disagree about the attribute, but only about that
to which the attribute belongs. I mean, for example, that the same wine
might seem at one time to be sweet and at another time not to be, if
either it or one's body had changed; but the sweetness itself, such as
it is whenever it might be present, never changes, and one is always
right about it, and what is going to be sweet is necessarily of such a
kind. And yet all these arguments abolish this, and just as they make
thinghood be nothing, so too do they make nothing be necessary; for
what is necessary cannot be otherwise and otherwise again, so that if
anything is so by necessity, it will not be both so and not so. 1 01 0b 30
And in general, if all there is is what is perceptible, nothing would
be if there were not beings with souls, since there would be no sense
perception. Now that there would be neither sense objects nor sense
perceptions is perhaps true (for these are experiences of the perceiver),
but it is impossible that there not be the underlying things which
bring about sense perception, even without the perception. For the
perception itself is surely not of itself, but there is also something else
besides the perception, which must be prior to the perception; for what
causes motion is prior by nature to what is moved, and even if these 1 01 1 a
things are meant relatively to one another, this is nonetheless so.21
Chapter 6 There are some of those who are convinced of these

things, as well as some who merely repeat these arguments, who raise
an impasse: they inquire who it is who judges which person is healthy,
and generally who judges each thing correctly. But such perplexities
are like being in doubt whether we are now asleep or awake, and all
such impasses amount to the same thing. For these people insist that
there be a justification of everything; for they ask for a starting point,
and want to get hold of it by demonstration, when the fact that they are 1 01 1 a 1 0
not convinced of their own doubts is obvious in their actions. Instead,
the very thing we are saying is the condition they are in, for they are
21 In general, relative terms name things that depend on each other and come into
being together (such as double and half, master and slave, etc.), but knowledge and
perception· are exceptions, being relative to the knowable and perceivable which are
not relative to them. See Categories 7b 1 5-8a 1 2.
looking for a reason for what has no reason, since the starting point of
demonstration is not a demonstration. These people, then, could easily
be persuaded of this (since it is not hard to understand), but those who
are looking only for the brute force of an argument are looking for what
is impossible, for they think it is alright to say contradictory things,
and to go right on saying them.
But if it is not the case that everything is relative, but some things are
themselves in their own right, then not everything that appears would
be true. For what appears is an appearance to someone, so that the one
1 01 1 a 20 who says that all appearances are true makes all beings relative. And
for this reason, those who are looking for the brute force of argument,
and at the same time insist on putting forth a reason, ought to beware,
since it is not the appearance that is true but the appearance to the one
it appears to, and when it appears and in what respect and how. And
if they do give an account but do not give it this way, it will soon tum
out that they say contradictory things. For it is possible for something
to appear to the same person to be honey by sight but not by taste,
and, since there are two eyes, not even to appear the same to each
of them by sight, if they are unlike. So as for those who say, for the
1 01 1 a 30 reasons mentioned above, that what appears is true, and hence that
all things are alike false and true, since it is not the case either that the
same things appear to everyone or the same things always to the same
person, but often contrary things appear at the same time (for touch
says there are two things between our crossed fingers while sight says
there is one), nevertheless something does not appear in contrary ways
1 01 1 b to the same sense in the same respect in the same way and at the same
time, so that this would be true. But perhaps for this reason those who
argue not on account of an impasse but for the sake of arguing need to
say not that this is true but that it is true for this person. And, as was
said before, they must make all things relative and dependent upon
opinion and perception, so that nothing either has happened or will
be so if no one has thought so first. But if anything has happened or
will be so, it is clear that all things could not be relative to opinion.
What's more, if something is one, it is related either to one thing or to a
definite number of things; and if the same thing is both half and equal,
1 01 1 b 1 0 still it is not in relation to its double that it is equal. But if the same
thing is a human being and thinkable thing in relation to a thinker,
not the thinker but only the thinkable thing could be a human being.
Book IV (Book f) Chapter 7 73
And if each thing is relative to the one thinking, the thinker would be
relative to things infinite in kind.22
So to the effect that the best established of all opinions is that
contradictory statements are not true at the same time, and what
follows for those who say that they are, and why they talk that way, let
so much have been said. But since it is impossible for a contradiction
to be true at one time of the same thing, it is clear that neither could
contrary properties belong to the same thing at the same time. For it
is no less so that one of the two contraries is a deprivation, and a
deprivation of thinghood, while a deprivation is a negation of some l Ol l b 20
definite class. So if it is impossible to assert and deny truly, it is also
impossible for contraries to be present together, unless both are present
in certain respects, or one of them in a certain respect, and the other
simply.
Chapter 7 But neither is it possible that there be anything between

contradictories, but about any one thing whatever, it is necessary either
to affirm or deny one of them. This is evident first of all to those who
define what the true and the false are. For to say that what is is not or
that what is not is, is false, but to say that what is is and what is not
is not, is true,23 so that the one who says that something is or is not is
either right or wrong. But if there is a middle ground, neither what is
nor what is not is said either to be or not to be. What's more, the thing 1 01 1 b 30
between the contradictories would be between them either as gray is
between black and white, or as what is neither one is between human
being and horse. Now if it is between in this latter way, it could not
change (for something changes from, say, not-good to good, or from
that to not-good), but as it is, in-between things always seem to be
involved in change (for there is no change other than into opposites
or what is in-between) . On the other hand, if it is in-between in the
22 To say that everything is relative to human opinion would mean that there is no
such thing even as human opinion, in two ways: it would itself only be what it is
in relation to human opinion, and it would dissolve into an infinity of relations. The
first consequence means that there is nothing to be on the other side of the relation
to opinion, and the second means there is no one thing to be part of each distinct
relation .
2 3 This i s the first of three progressively deeper definitions of truth i n the Metaphysics.
The others are in Bk. VI, Ch. 4 and Bk. IX, Ch. 1 0.
74 Book IV (Book I} Chapter 7
1 01 2a former way, in this way too there would be something that now is
not seen: some turning into white that was not from something not
white. Again, our thinking either affirms or denies everything that it
thinks about-and this is clear from its definition-whenever it thinks
truly or falsely; whenever it puts together an assertion or denial this
way, it is true, but that way, it is false. Further, there would have to
be in-between things alongside all contradictories, if one is not just
arguing for the sake of arguing, and therefore there will be something
that is neither true nor not-true, and something besides being and not
being, as that there would be a kind of change that is not becoming or
passing away. Again, in all those cases of things in which the negation
1 01 2a 1 0 of something implies its contrary, there will be in-between things even
among these, as among numbers, a number that is neither odd or not
odd, which is impossible, as is obvious from the definition. Further,
this will go on to infinity, and beings will not only be half again as many
but more. For it will be possible in turn to negate both the affirmation
and the denial of this in-between thing, and this will be something,
for its thinghood will be something other than the previous one. And
further, whenever one who is asked if a thing is white says that it is
not, he has negated nothing other than its being so, while the not being
so is the negation.
Now this opinion has come about for some people in the same
way that other paradoxes have; for whenever one is not able to refute
1 01 2a 20 a debater's arguments, by giving in to the argument, he concedes
the thing on which the reasoning was based to be true. Some people,
then, say this for some such reason, but others because of seeking an
argument for everything. But the starting point for all of these comes
from definition. And the definition arises from the necessity that they
mean something, since the articulation of which the word is a sign
will be a definition. But while the Heracleitean account, saying that
everything is and is not, seemed to make all things be true, that of
Anaxagoras, that there is something between contradictories, seems
to make all things false, for when things are mixed, the mixture is
neither good nor not-good, so that there is nothing true to say.
Chapter 8 Now that these things have been distinguished, it is clear

1 01 2a 30 the statements that go only one way about all things cannot be accepted
in the way some people say them, some of them saying that nothing is
true (for they say that nothing prevents everything from being just like
"the diagonal is commensurable"24), while others say that everything

is true. For these claims are just about the same as the Heracleitean
one; for whoever says that all things are true and all things are false
also makes each of these two claims separately, so that if they are both 1 01 2b
impossible, it too is impossible. Yet there are obviously contradictory
things that cannot be true at the same time; nor indeed can all things be
false, even though this might seem more possible from what has been
said. But in the face of all such claims one must require what was said in
the chapters above, not that something be or not be so but that it mean
something, so that one must reason from a definition to grasp what
would mean something false or something true. And if what is true to
assert is what is false to deny, it is impossible for all things to be false, 1 01 2b 1 0
since one of the two parts of the contradiction must be true. Further, if
it is necessary either to assert or deny everything, it is impossible that
both be false, since one of the two parts of the contradiction is false.
And in fact all these claims are subject to the much repeated point that
they annihilate themselves. For the one who says that everything is
true also makes the statement contrary to his own be true, so that his
own is not true (since the contrary one says that it is not true), while
the one who says that everything is false also himself makes himself
wrong. And if they make exceptions, the former that the contrary of
his claim is the only one that is not true, or the latter that his own is
the only one that is not false, nevertheless it turns out that they require 1 01 2b 20
infinitely many statements to be false or true, since the one that says
that the true statement is true is also true, and this goes on to infinity.
It is also clear that neither those who say that all things are at rest or
those who say they are all in motion speak the truth. For if all things
are at rest, the same things would always be true and the same things
false, but this obviously changes (for the one who says this himself at
one time was not and again will not be); but if all things are in motion,
nothing would be true and therefore everything would be false, but
it has been demonstrated that this is impossible. What's more it must
be what is that changes, since change is from something to something.
But it is surely not everything that is at rest sometimes and in motion 1 01 2b 30
24 It seems perfectly obvious that some small fractional part of a square's diagonal
must fit some exact number of times into its side, but precise reasoning shows that
this is impossible. The sophist counts on undermining one's trust in whatever seems
evident.
76 Book IV (Book I} Chapter 8
sometimes, while nothing is always at rest or in motion, for there is

something that is always moving the things that move, and the first
mover itself is motionless.
Book V (Book �)
Things Meant in More than One Way1
Chapter 1 Source means that part of a thing from which one might 1 0 1 2b 34
first move, as of a line or a road there is a source in one direction, 1 01 3a
and another one in the opposite direction; and it means that from
which each thing might best come into being, as in the case of learning,
sometimes one ought to begin not from what is first and the source of
the thing, but from which one might learn most easily; or it means that
constituent from which something first comes into being, such as the
keel of a ship or the foundation of a house,2 and in animals some say
it is the heart, others the brain, and others whatever they happen to
believe is of this sort; or it means that which is not a constituent, from
which something first comes into being, and from which its motion
and change naturally first begin, as a child from its father and mother,
or a fight from insults; or it means that by whose choice what is moved 1 01 3a 1 0
is moved or what changes changes, in the sense in which the ruling
offices of cities as well as oligarchies, monarchies, and tyrannies are
called sources,3 as are the arts, and among these the master crafts most
of all. Also, that from which a thing is first known is called the source
of the thing, such as the hypotheses of demonstrations.
Causes are meant in just as many ways, since all causes are sources.
And what is common to all sources is to be the first thing from which
something is or comes to be or is known; of these, some are present
within while others are outside. For this reason nature is a source, as are 1 01 3a 20
elements, thinking, choice, thinghood, and that for the sake of which;
1 This title for Book V supplied by the translator. The secondary literature generally
refers to this book as a dictionary, but Aristotle himself, at the beginnings of Books
VII and X, says that it is about the various ways things are meant. The point is not to
define words but to collect and organize the distinct senses of important words meant
in more than one way. These ambiguities are not verbal but inherent in things, and
Aristotle steadfastly preserves them.
2 Of Odysseus's house, the source in this sense is his marriage bed, rooted in the earth
(Odyssey Book XX, lines 1 90-201 ).
3 There is a faint echo of this meaning when we speak of going to the source for a
decision, but it is the predominant sense of the Greek word; arche means not only
what was first but what is first, a ruling beginning.
78 Book V (Book �) Chapter 1
for the good and the beautiful are sources of both the knowledge and
the motion of many things.
Chapter 2 Cause means, in one sense, that out of which something

comes into being, still being present in it, as the bronze of a statue or the
silver of a bowl, or the kinds of these. In another way it is the form or
pattern, and this is the gathering in speech of what it is for something
to be, or again the kinds of this (as of the octave, the two-to-one ratio,
or generally number), and the parts that are in its articulation. In yet
1 01 3a 30 another it is that from which the first beginning of change or rest is,4
as the legislator is a cause, or the father of a child, or generally the
maker of what is made, or whatever makes a changing thing change.
And in still another way it is meant as the end. This is that for the
sake of which,s as health is of walking around. Why is he walking
around? We say "in order to be healthy," and in so saying think we
have completely given the cause. Causes also are as many things as
1 01 3b come between the mover of something else and the end; as, of health,
fasting or purging or drugs or instruments. For all these are for the sake
of the end, but they differ from one another in that some are deeds and
others tools.
The causes then are meant in just about this many ways, and
it happens, since they are meant in more than one way, that the
nonincidental causes of the same thing are also many (as of the statue
both the art of sculpture and bronze, not as a consequence of anything
else but just as a statue, though not in the same way, but the one
as material and the other as that from which the motion was). And
1 01 3b 1 0 there are also causes of one another (as hard work of good condition
and this in turn of hard work, though again not in the same way,
but the one as end and the other as source of motion). Further, the
4 This is sometimes mistakenly called the efficient cause. Aristotle never describes it in
such a way, and we generally intend by the phrase the proximate cause, the last event
that issues in the effect. Aristotle always means instead the origin of motion, when it
happens to be outside the moving thing. It is only in a derivative or incidental sense
that he will speak of a push or a bump as being a cause at all, since, as he says at
1 01 3a 1 6 above, all causes are sources.
5 This is Aristotle's comprehensive phrase for what is generally called the final cause,
a much broader idea than that of purpose. The telos, or completion, of a deliberate
action or series of actions is a purpose, but in nature the completion for the sake of
which things occur is the wholeness of natural beings.
Book V (Book <i) Chapter 2 79
same thing is a cause of opposite things, for the thing that is present
is responsible for this result, and we sometimes blame this, when it is
absent, for the opposite one, as the absence of the pilot for the ship's
overturning, whose presence was the cause of its keeping safe, and
both, the presence and its lack, are causes as movers.
But all the causes now being spoken of fall into four most evident
ways. For the letters of syllables and the material of processed things
and fire and earth and all such things, of bodies, and parts of a 1 01 3b 20
whole and hypotheses of a conclusion are causes as that out of which,
and while the one member of each of these pairs is a cause as what
underlies, such as parts, the other is so as the what-it-is-for-it-to-be,
a whole or composite or form. But the semen and the doctor and the
legislator, and generally the maker, are all causes as that from which
the source of change or rest is, but other things as the end or the good
of the remaining ones. For that-for-the-sake-of-which means to be the
best thing and the end of the other things, and let it make no difference
to say the good itself or the apparent good.
The causes then are these and so many in form, but the ways the
causes work are many in number, though even these are fewer if they 1 01 3b 30
are brought under headings. For cause is meant in many ways, and of
those of the same form, as preceding and following one another. For
example, the cause of health is the doctor and also the skilled knower,
and of the octave the double and also number, and always things
comprehensive of whatever is among the particulars. Further, there
is what is incidental, and the kinds of these, as of the statue, in one
way Polycleitus and in another the sculptor, because it is incidental to 1 01 4a
the sculptor to be Polycleitus. And there are things comprehensive of
the incidental cause, as that a human being is the cause of the statue,
or generally an animal, because Polycleitus is a human being .and a
human being is an animal. And also among incidental things, some
are more remote and others nearer, as if the pale man or the one with
a refined education were said to be the cause of a statue. And all of
them, both those meant properly and those incidentally, are meant
some as potential and others as at-work, as of building a house, either
the builder or the builder building. And similarly to the things that 1 01 4a 1 0
have been said, an account will be given for those things of which the
causes are causes, as of this statue or a statue or in general an image,
and of this bronze or of bronze or in general of material, and likewise
with the incidental things. Further, things intertwining the former and
80 Book V (Book 11) Chapter 2
the latter will be said, such as not Polycleitus nor a sculptor but the
sculptor Polycleitus.
Nevertheless, all these are six in multitude, but spoken of in a
twofold way: there is the particular or the kind, the incidental or the
kind of the incidental thing, and these intertwined or spoken of simply;
1 0.1 4a 20 and all as either at-work or in potency. And they differ to this extent,
that what is at-work and particular is and is not present at the same
time as that of which it is the cause, as this one healing with this one
being cured or this one building with this thing being built, but not
always so with what is potential. The house and the housebuilder are
not finished off simultaneously.
Chapter 3 Element means that out of which something is com

posed, as the first constituent not divisible in kind into a different
kind, as the elements of speech are those things out of which speech is
composed and into which it is last divided, while they are no longer
1 01 4a 30 divided into other utterances different in kind from them, but if they
are divided, the parts are of the same kind, as a part of water is water,
though a part of a syllable is not a syllable. Similarly, the elements of
bodies are meant by those who say into what bodies are divided last,
while those things are no longer divided into others differing in kind;
and whether there is one such thing or more than one, they call them
elements. And the elements of geometrical proofs are meant in much
the same way, and so are the elements of demonstration in general,
1 01 4b for the first demonstrations are also present in the rest of the demon
strations, and these are called elements of demonstration; and of this
kind are the primary syllogisms, made of three terms and concluded
through one middle term.
Also, by altering the sense from this one, people call what is one and
small, and useful for many things, an element, and so anything small,
simple, and indivisible is called an element. Hence it comes about
that the most universal things are elements, because each of them,
being one and simple, is present in many things, either all or as many
as possible, and that oneness and the point seem to some people to
1 0 1 4b 1 0 be sources of things. So since the so-called genera6 are universal and
6 Aristotle tends to confine the word genus to the kinds that are one step above the
species of natural beings, each being the primary constituent in the articulation of
what something is, as he puts it below at 1 024b 4-5. The use of the word referred
Book V (Book il) Chapter 4 81
indivisible (since there is no articulation of them), some people call

the genera elements, and more so than the specific difference because
the genus is more universal; for that to which the specific difference
belongs, the genus follows along with, while the specific difference
does not belong to everything that the genus does. But common to
all the meanings is that to be an element in each sense is to be a first
constituent in each thing.
Chapter 4 In one sense, nature means the coming into being of

things that are born, as if one had said "nativity,"7 but in a sense
it means the first thing present in a growing thing, from which it
grows. Again, it is that from which the primary motion in each of
the beings that are by nature is present within itself insofar as it is 1 01 4b 20
itself. And those things are said to grow which have increase from
something else by contact and either growing-into-one or, as with
embryos, growing-upon, while growing-into-one differs from contact
in that there nothing else besides the contact is necessary; but in things
that grow into one there is some one thing that is the same in both
which makes them grow together instead of touching, and be one by
continuity and quantity, though not by what sort of thing each is.
And further, nature means the primary thing from which any of the
beings that are not by nature is or comes to be, which is unarranged
and unable to be changed out of its own capacity; as bronze is said to
be the nature of a statue or of bronze implements, or wood of wooden 1 01 4b 30
things, and similarly in other cases; for each of them is made out of
these things because the primary material is preserved throughout.
In this way too the elements of the things that are by nature are said
to be nature, some people saying that it is fire, some earth, some air,
some water, some some other such thing, others some of these, and
still others all of them. And again, in another way nature means the
thinghood of things that are by nature, as those people mean who say
that nature is the primary combination of things, or as Empedocles 1 0 1 5a
says
No nature belongs to any of the things that are;
to here presupposes pressing merely logical definitions back to an array of highest

classes of all things.
7 literally, "as if one were to pronounce the upsilon in phusis long."
82 Book V (Book M Chapter 4
There is only mixture and remixture of intermingled things, and

Nature is given as a name by human beings.
For this reason, though all things that are or come to be by nature
already have present that out of which they naturally come into being
or are made, we say that they do not yet have their natures if they do
not have their look and form. So that which consists of both of these
is by nature, such as animals and their parts, and nature is both the
first material (and this in two senses, either first in relation to the thing
itself or first generally, as with works of bronze, the bronze is first in
1 015a 1 0 relation to them, but in general it is perhaps water, if all things that
melt are water) and the form or thinghood, which is the completion of
a thing's coming into being. And in an extended sense, every kind of
thinghood in general is directly called a nature for this reason: because
nature is a certain kind of thinghood.
So from what has been said, the primary and authoritative meaning
of nature is the thinghood of things that have in themselves a source
of motion in their own right; for the material is called nature by being
receptive of this, and coming-into-being and growing are called nature
by being motions proceeding out of this. And this is the source of
motion of things that are by nature, being present in them all along in
some way, either potentially or fully at work.
1 01 5a 20 Chapter 5 Necessary means that without which, as a contributing

cause, it is not possible to live, as breathing and food are necessary
to an animal, since without them it is impossible for them to be, and
it means those things without which the good either could not be
or could not come about, or the bad be cast off or avoided, as, say,
drinking medicine is necessary in order not to be sick, or sailing to
Aegina in order to get money. Also, it refers to what is compelled, or
to force, and this is what constrains or prevents, contrary to impulse
and choice, for what is forced is called necessary; and for this reason
necessity is also painful, as Evenus says "For every necessary thing is
1 01 5a 30 by nature annoying," and force is a kind of necessity as Sophocles says ·
"But force made it necessary for me to do this"; and necessity seems

to be something that cannot be changed by persuasion, and seems so
rightly, for it is contrary to motion that results from choice and from
reasoning.
Further, we say that which is incapable of being otherwise to be
as it is necessarily, and it is as a result of this necessity that all other
Book V (Book <1) Chapter 6 83
necessities are in some way attributed; for what is forced means what
is necessary to do or suffer whenever, on account of being forced, one 1 01 5b
is incapable of acting from impulse, as though this kind of necessity
were one through which something could not be otherwise, and it
is similar in the case of contributing causes of life or of the good.
For whenever without something anything is incapable in one case
of the good, or in the other case of life and being, these things are
necessary and this cause is a kind of necessity. Also, demonstration
is of necessary things, because it cannot be otherwise, if it has simply
been demonstrated, and the causes of this are the first premises, if
those from which the conclusion comes cannot possibly be otherwise.
So of some things, something else is the cause of their being necessary, 1 01 5b 1 0
but of others, nothing else is, but rather it is through them that other
things are necessary. Therefore the primary and authoritative sense of
necessary belongs to what is simple, for this is not capable of being in
more than one way, and so has no this way and otherwise, for then it
would automatically have more than one way of being. So if there are
some things that are everlasting and motionless, for them nothing is
forced or contrary to nature.
Chapter 6 One is meant in one sense of what is so incidentally,

in another sense of what is so in its own right; incidentally one, for
example, are Coriscus and educated, or educated-Coriscus (for it is
the same thing to say Coriscus and educated, and educated-Coriscus),
or educated and just, or educated and just Coriscus. For all these 1 01 5b 20
are called one incidentally, the just and the educated because they
are incidental to one independent thing, and educated and Coriscus
because one of them is incidental to the other; and similarly, in a certain
way educated-Coriscus is one with Coriscus, because one of the parts
in the expression is incidental to the other one, namely educated to
Coriscus, and educated-Coriscus is incidental to just-Coriscus because
one part of each expression is incidental to the same single thing.
And it is similar even if the incidental thing is attributed to a class
of things, or to phrases which name some universal, as if one were to
say that human being and educated human being are the same; for this 1 01 5b 30
is either because educated is incidental to human being, while it is one
independent thing, or because both of them do not belong to him in
the same way, but the one presumably as a class and in his thinghood,
while the other is a state or attribute of the independent thing.
84 Book V (Book Li) Chapter 6
As many things, then, as are called one incidentally are meant in

this way, but of those called one in their own right, some are meant
1 0 1 6a as being continuous, as a bundle is held together by means of a cord,
and wood by means of glue; and a line, even if it is bent, so long as
it is continuous, is called one, just as also each of the body parts is,
such as a leg or an arm. Among these themselves, the things that are
continuous by nature are one more so than those that are continuous
by means of art. And what is called continuous is that of which the
motion is one in its own right,B and not capable of being otherwise,
while the motion is one if it is undivided and in an undivided time.
And those things are continuous in their own right which are one not
by contact; for if you place pieces of wood touching each other, you
would not say that these are one either as wood or as a body, nor that
they are continuous in any other way. And things that are continuous
1 0 1 6a 1 0 are in general called one, even if they have a bend, and still more so
those that do not have a bend, as the shin or thigh is one more than is
the leg, because it is possible for the motion of the leg not to be one.
And the straight line is one more so than the bent line, but the line
that is bent and has an angle we call both one and not one, because it
is possible for its motion both to be and not be simultaneous; but the
motion of the straight line is always simultaneous, and of no part of it
that has magnitude does part stay still while part moves, as do parts
of the bent line.
Also in another way, things are called one because what underlies
them is undifferentiated in kind; and those things are undifferentiated
whose form is not divisible into subclasses by sense perception, while
1 01 6a 20 what underlies them is either first or last from the end. For wine is
called one, and water is called one, in that they are indivisible in kind,
but also all juices, such as olive oil and wine, as well as all things
that melt, are called one because the last thing underlying them all
is the same, since they are all water or air. But also those things are
called one whose genus is one, even though they differ by opposite
8 The meanings of one in this chapter are arranged in ascending order, from weakest
to strongest. Two of the steps on the way are weaker and stronger senses of continuity
(in Greek, the property of holding together). This clause is not a general definition of
continuity, but a description of a sufficient sign of its weakest sense. If you pick up
one of the sticks tied into a bundle, the rest come with it. A necessary condition of
the stronger sense of the word is given in the Physics at 232b 24-25, and a proper
definition of it at 22 7a 1 1 -1 2.
Book V (Book �) Chapter 6 85
specific differences, and these are all called one because the genus that
underlies their differences is one (for example, a horse, a human being,
and a dog are one thing because they are all animals), in much the same
way as the material is one, And while these things are sometimes called
one in this way, sometimes it is said that the higher genus is the same, 1 01 6a 30
if they are ultimate species of the genus, as the isosceles and equilateral
are one and the same figure, since they are both triangles, but not the
same triangles.9
Again, all those things are called one of which the articulation
saying what it is for them to be is indivisible into any other one
revealing what the thing is. (Every articulation itself is divisible within
itself.) For in this way, even what is growing or shrinking is one thing,
because its articulation is one, just as in the case of the articulation of
the shape of plane figures. And in general, those things of which the 1 01 6b
thinking is indivisible, which thinks what it is for them to be, if it is not
capable of separating them in time or in place or in articulation, are
one most of all, and of these, most of all those which are independent
things. For generally, whatever does not have a division, insofar as it
does not have it, is in that respect called one; for example, if insofar as
it is a human being it has no division, it is one human being, if insofar
as it is an animal, it is one animal, or if insofar as it is a magnitude, it
is one magnitude. So while most are called one by way of something
else, either doing or having or undergoing or being in a relation to
something that is one, others are called one in the primary sense, and
of these the thinghood is one, and one either in continuity or in species
or in articulation, for we count as more than one those things that are 1 01 6b 1 0
not continuous, or of which the species is not one, or of which the
articulation is not one. But again, there is a sense in which we say that
anything whatever is one if it is so-much and continuous, but there is
another sense in which we do not if it not some kind of whole, that is,
if it does not have a form that is one; for instance, we could not say
that it was one all the same if we saw the parts of a shoe put together
any which way, unless on account of continuity, but only if they were
put together in such a way that it is a shoe and already has some one
9 In this way, instead of saying that the horse and dog are one thing because they are
both animals, one would say they are one and the same life form, animals and not
plants, though not the same animal.
86 Book V (Book Ll) Chapter 6
form. And for this reason among lines, the shape of the circle is one
most of all, because it is whole and complete.
To be one is to be a source for something to be a number; for the
first measure is a source, since that by which we first know each class
1 01 6b 20 of things is the first measure of it. So oneness is the source of what
is knowable about each thing. But what is one is not the same in
all classes; for here it is the smallest musical interval, but there it is
the vowel or consonant, and of weight it is a different thing, and of
motion something else. But what is one is always indivisible, either in
amount or in kind. As for what is indivisible in amount, that which is
indivisible in any way and has no position is called the arithmetic unit,
that which is indivisible in any way and has position the point; that
which is divisible in one direction is a line, in two a plane, and what
is divisible in all three directions with respect to amount is a bodily
solid, and-going back the other way again-what is divisible in two
directions is a plane, in one a line, what is divisible in no direction with
1 01 6b 30 respect to amount is a point or unit, the one without position the unit,
the one with position a point.
Again, some things are one in number, others in species, others in
genus, and others by analogy: in number, things of which the material
is one, in species things of which the articulation is one, in genus, things
to which the same manner of predication applies,lO and by analogy, as
many things as are in the condition that something else is, in relation
to something else. The later ones follow along with the earlier ones,
as things that are one in number are also one in species, but not all
1 01 7a those that are one in species are one in number; but as many things as
are one in species are all also one in genus, while those that are one in
genus are not all one in species, but are all one by analogy; but not all _
those that are one by analogy are one in genus.
And it is clear that many will be meant in ways opposite to one: for
some things are many through not being continuous, others through
having their material divided in kind, whether the first or last material,
and others because the articulations that say what it is for them to be
are more than one.
Chapter 7 Being is meant in one sense incidentally, in another sense
1 0 In this sense, all qualities are one, all places, etc. See below, beginning at 1 01 7a 23.
Book V (Book �) Chapter 7 87
in its own right; in the incidental sense, we say, for example, that the just
person is educated, or the human being is educated, or the educated
one is a humanbeing, inmuch the same way asifwe were tosaythat the 1 01 7a 1 0
educated one builds a house because it is incidental to the housebuilder
to be educated, or to the educated one to be a housebuilder (for here
this is this means that this is incidental to this). And it is this way
too in the case of,the things mentioned; for whenever we say that the
human being is educated or the educated one is a human being, or that
the white thing is educated or this is white, we mean in some cases
that both are incidental to the same thing, in others that something is
incidental to a being, and in the case of the educated human being, that
the educated is incidental to this person. (And in this sense even the
not-white is said to "be" because that to which it is incidental is.) So
things that are said to be incidentally are said to be so either because 1 01 7a 20
both belong to the same being, or because one of them belongs to a
being, or because the thing itself is, to which belongs that to which it
is attributed.
But just as many things are said to be in their own right as are meant
by the modes of predication; for in as many ways as these are said, in so
many ways does to be have meaning. Since, then, of things predicated,
some signify what a thing is, others of what sort it is, others how much
it is, others to what it is related, others what it is doing or having done
to it, others where it is, and others when it is, being means the same
thing as each one of these.H For it makes no difference whether one
says a person is healing or a person heals, or a person is walking or
cutting rather than that a person walks or cuts, and similarly in the 1 01 7a 30
other cases.
Also, to be and is signify that something is true, and not to be signifies
that it is not true but false, alike in the cases of affirmation and denial;
for instance, that Socrates is educated indicates that this is true, or
that Socrates is indicates that this is true, but that the diagonal is not
commensurable indicates that this is false.
Again, being and what is mean in one sense something that is definite 1 01 7b
as a potency, but in another sense what is fully at work, among these
1 1 These modes of predication, or ways of saying anything about anything, are also the
ultimate classes of beings, not able to be reduced in number. They are usually referred
to as the "categories." The book called the Categories, of which the authorship is
sometimes disputed, adds two more to the eight given here.
88 Book V (Book .i) Chapter 7
things thathave been mentioned. For we say of both one who is capable
of seeing and one who is fully at work seeing that he sees, and similarly
of both one who is capable of using knowledge and one who is using it
that he knows, and also both of that to which rest already belongs and
that which is capable of being at rest that it rests. And it is similar in
the case of independent things, for we say that Hermes is in the block
of stone, and that the half belongs to a line, and that what is not yet
ripe is grain. When something is potential and when it is not yet so
must be distinguished in other places.l2
1 01 7b 1 0 Chapter 8 Thinghood is attributed to the simple bodies, such as

earth, fire, water, and whatever is of this sort, and also to bodies in
general and the things composed of them, both living things and heav
enly bodies as well as their parts; and all these are called independent
things because they are not attributed to anything underlying them,
but other things are attributed to them. But in another way, thinghood
means that which is responsible for the being of a thing, and is a con
stituent in whatever things are of such a kind as not to be attributed
to an underlying thing; an example is the soul of an animal. Further,
thinghood refers to whatever parts are present in such things that mark
them off and indicate a this, the removal of which does away with the
whole; as a body is annihilated by the removal of its surface, as some
1 01 7b 20 say, or a surface by the removal of its boundary line; and in general,
number seems to some people to be this sort of thing (since nothing
would be if it were removed, and it marks off all things). But it also
means what it is for something to be, the articulation of which is a
definition, and this is called the thinghood of each thing.
It turns out, then, that thinghood is meant in two ways, both as the
ultimate underlying thing, which is no longer attributed to anything
else, and also of whatever is a this and separate, and of this sort is the
form or "look" of each thing.13
1 2 See Book IX, Ch. 7.

1 3 Commentators are quick to deny what Aristotle says here, citing other places where
he says that the form is not separate except in thought. But this comes from a failure
to understand the dialectical structure of Aristotle's writings, which follow the order
of inquiry. For instance, it is said in this chapter and again at the beginning of Bk.
VII, Ch. 2, that the parts of animals are independent things because, at first glance,
their organs and systems seem isolable. But at the beginning of Bk. VII, Ch. 1 6, as the
inquiry into thinghood nears its conclusion, Aristotle rejects that preliminary opinion,
Book V (Book .1.) Chapter 9 89
Chapter 9 Things are said to be the same in some instances inci

dentally, as what is white and what is educated are the same because
they are incidental to the same thing, or a human being and educated
because one of them is incidental to the other, and the educated thing 1 01 7b 30
is human because it is incidental to a human being. And this combina
tion is the same as either part, and either of them is the same as it, for
both the human being and the educated one are said to be the same as
the educated human being, and it to be the same as they. (And for this
reason all these statements are made nonuniversally, since it is not true
to say that every human being is the same as the educated; for things
that are universal belong to things in their own right, while incidental 1 0 1 8a
things belong to them not in their own right. But they are predicated
of particulars simply; for Socrates and educated Socrates seem to be
the same thing, but "Socrates" is not applied to many things, on which
account "every Socrates" is not said in the way that "every human
being" is.)
But while some things are said to be the same in this way, others are
said to be so in their own right, and in exactly as many ways as they
are said to be one; for those things of which the material is one, either
in kind or in number, are also said to be the same, as well as those of
which the thinghood is one, so it is evident that sameness is a kind of
oneness of the being of things that are either more than one, or that
are being used as more than one, such as when one says that a thing
itself is the same as itself, since one is using it as two. But things are 1 0 1 8a 1 0
called other of which either the forms, the material, or the articulation
of the thinghood is more than one, and in general other is meant in
ways opposite to same.
All those things are called different that are other but are the same
in some respect, only not in number but in either species or genus or
by analogy. Also called different are those things of which the genus
is other, and contraries, and as many things as have otherness in their
thinghood.
and explains why. In the same way, it must seem to begin with that forms have a
separate being only in our thinking, and Aristotle says this at various places, but at
1 072a 25-28, the culmination of the Metaphysics and of all Aristotle's philosophizing,
he deduces the existence of separate forms. The present sentence is an anticipation
of that inquiry, and means exactly what it says.
Alike is used of things that have the same attributes in every respect,
as well as of things that have more attributes the same than different,
and of which the quality is one; and in the case of contrary attributes
which are capable of altering, a thing is like that one which shares
either the most or most important of these. And unlike is meant is
ways opposite to like.
1 01 8a 20 Chapter 10 Things said to be opposites are contradictories, con

traries, relative terms, lacking and having, and the extremes from
which things come into being and into which they pass away; and
whatever things do not admit of being present at the same time in
something that is receptive of both of them are said to be opposed,
either themselves or what they are made of. For gray and white do not
belong to the same thing at the same time because what they are made
of is opposed.
Contraries mean things not capable of being present in the same
thing at the same time, which differ in genus, or things in the same
genus that differ most, or things in the same recipient that differ most,
1 0 1 8a 30 or things that come under the same capacity that differ most, or things
whose difference is greatest either simply, or in a genus or species. The
other things that are called contraries are so called either because of
having such things, or because of being receptive of them, or because
of being productive of or affected by them, or being losses or gains
or states of having or lacking them. And since one and being are
meant in more than one way, all those other things that are meant
in ways corresponding to these must follow along with them, so that
also same, other, and contrary are different according to each of the
ways of predicating being.
1 01 8b Different in species are all those things which are of the same genus
and are not subordinated one to the other, and all those things which
are in the same genus and have a difference, and all those things that
have a contrariness in their thinghood; contraries are also different
from one another in species, either all of them or the ones called so
in the primary sense, as are all those things in the ultimate species of
a genus that have different articulations (as human being and horse
are undivided in genus, but have different articulations), as well as
all those things which, though present in the same independent thing,
have a difference. The same in species are those things that are meant
in ways opposite to these.
Book V (Book il) Chapter 1 1 91
Chapter 11 Things are said to be preceding and following in some

cases, if there is some first thing or beginning in each class, because 1 01 8b 1 0
of being nearer to some beginning determined either simply and by
nature, or else relatively or somewhere or by some people, as some
things precede others in place by being nearer either to some definite
natural place (such as a middle or an end), or to some random thing,
while what is farther from it is following. Other things are preceding in
time (some by being farther from the present, in the case of past things,
for the Trojan wars precede the Persian ones because they stand farther
away from the present, but others by being nearer to the present, in
the case of future things, for the Nemean games precede the Pythian
ones because they are nearer, when one uses the present as a beginning
and first time). Other things have precedence in motion (for what is 1 01 8b 20
nearer to its first mover precedes the rest, as a boy precedes a man,
while an origin of motion takes precedence simply). Other things have
precedence in power (for what exceeds in power takes precedence and
is more powerful; and of this sort is the person whose choice someone
else must go along with and follow, so that the latter does not move
when the former does not set him in motion, and does move when he
does, the choice being the origin). Other things precede in an ordering
(and these are all those things that are placed at intervals in relation
to one definite thing in accordance with some pattern, as the second
member of a chorus precedes the third, or the middle note of a chord
precedes the highest, for there the beginning is the choral leader, and
here it is the tonal center).
In this sense, then, these things are called preceding, but in an 1 0 1 8b 30
other sense what precedes in knowledge take precedence simply. And
among these, that which has precedence according to reason does so
in a different way from that which does so according to sense percep
tion, for according to reason it is the universal that takes precedence,
but according to sense perception it is the particular; and according to
reason the attribute precedes the whole, as the educated precedes the
educated human being, since there could not be the whole articulation
without the part, and yet it is not possible for the educated to be if
there is not something that is educated. Also, the attributes of things
that have precedence are said to have precedence, such as straightness
over smoothness, since the former is an attribute of a line on its own, 1 01 9a
but the latter of a surface.
Now some things are called preceding and following in that way,
but others in accordance with nature and thinghood, namely those

things that are capable of being without other things, while those
others are not capable of being without them, which is a distinction
that Plato used. (But since being is of more than one kind, first of
all the underlying subject takes precedence, on account of which
the independent thing precedes, but secondly precedence varies in
accordance with potency or being-at-work; for some things precede in
potency but others in being-at-work. In potency the half line precedes
the whole one, the part precedes the whole, and material precedes
1 01 9a 1 0 the independent thing, but in being-at-work they follow them, for
only when the thing is broken apart will they be fully at work.) So
in a certain way all the things that are said to precede and follow are
meant in accordance with this distinction; for some things are capable
of being without others as a result of coming into being, such as the
whole without the parts, but others as a result of destruction, such as
the part without the whole. And it is similar with the rest.
Chapter 12 Potency means a source of motion or of change, either

in something else or in something as something else; for example,
housebuilding is a potency that is not present in the thing that is built,
but medical skill is a potency which could be in the one who is healed,
but not insofar as he is healed. So the source of change or of motion in
1 01 9a 20 something else or as something else is called a potency; but so is the
source of being moved or changed by something else or as something
else. For in virtue of that by which something passive is acted upon,
we say that it is capable of being acted upon, sometimes in any way
whatever, but sometimes not with respect to every affection but only
for the better. It also means the power of carrying this out well or
in accordance with choice; for sometimes of those who just travel or
speak, but not well or not in the way they intend, we say that they are
not capable of speaking or walking, and similarly in the case of being
passive. Also, all those states in virtue of which things are completely
unaffected or unchangeable, or else not easily altered for the worse,
are called potencies; for things are broken and crushed and bent and
1 01 9a 30 in general destroyed not by being capable but by being incapable
and falling short of something; while among such things, those are
unaffected which hardly and barely can be acted upon because of a

potency and by being capable and holding on in some state.
And since potency is meant in so many ways, also what is capable
Book V (Book �) Chapter 1 2 93
will mean in one way what has a source of motion or change (for
even what can bring something to a stop is something capable) in
something else or as something else, and in one way even if some 1 01 9b
other thing has such a power over it, and in one way even if it has a
power to change in any direction whatever, whether for the worse or
for the better. (For even what is destroyed seems to be capable of being
destroyed, since it would not be destroyed if it were incapable of it;
but as things are it has some disposition and cause and source of such
an affection, and sometimes it seems to be by having something, but
other times by lacking something that it is such. But if a deprivation
is somehow a condition it has, then in all cases it would be by having
something, though if it is not, this would be so only ambiguously, so
that it is capable by having some condition or by having the lack of it, 1 01 9b 1 0
if it is possible to "have" a lack.) And in one sense a thing is capable
by virtue of something else's (or its, as something else) not having a
destructive power over it, or source of such a thing, Again, in all these
ways a thing is capable either because of something's just happening
to come about or not come about, or because of its doing so well. For
this sort of potency is present even in things without souls,14 such as
in instruments, for people say that one lyre is capable of sounding but
another is not, if it doesn't sound good.
And incapacity is a lack of potency and of the sort of source that has
been mentioned, either completely or in what would naturally have
it, or even at the time when it would naturally already have it; for it
is not in the same way that we would say a boy, a man, and a eunuch
were incapable of begetting. Also, for each power there is an opposite 1 01 9b 20
incapacity, both to the one that can only set something in motion, and
to that which can do so well.
And while some things are said to be incapable in this sense of in
capacity, others are said in another way to be possible and impossible:
impossible that of which the contrary is necessarily true (in the way
1 4 This striking qualification shows that the potencies described so far are found
primarily in living things. They are innate strivings which will emerge so long as nothing
prevents them, described in the Physics as inherently yearning for and stretching out
toward form (1 92a 1 8). Though the weaker sense of mere possibility is described later
in the chapter, the stronger sense of dunamis should always be presumed in Aristotle's
writings.
94 Book V (Book �) Chapter 1 2
that it would be impossible for a diagonal to be commensurable be

cause such a thing is false and the contrary of it is not only true but
also necessary; so that its commensurability is not only false but nec
essarily false), while, contrary to this, something is said to be possible
whenever it is not necessary that its contrary be false, in the way that
1 01 9b 30 it is possible for a human being to sit, since it is not by necessity that
his not sitting is false. So in one sense, as has been said, the possible
means that which is not necessarily false, in one sense it means what is
true, and in one sense it means that which admits of being true. But it
is in an altered sense that a power is spoken of in geometry.15 So these
things are possible not as a result of a potency; but other things that
1 020a are spoken of as resulting from a potency are all meant in relation to
the one primary sense of the word, that is, a source of change in some
thing else or as something else. For other things are said to be capable
either because something has such a power over them, or because it
does not have it, or because it has it in such-and-such a way. And it
is similar with things that are incapable. Therefore the authoritative
definition of the primary kind of potency would be a source of change
in something else, or as something else.16
Chapter 13 so-much which is divisible into

A thing is said to be
constituents of which each is a one and a this by nature. A particular
so-much is a multitude if it is countable, but a magnitude if it is
1 020a 1 0 measurable. And a multitude means what is potentially divisible into
noncontinuous parts, a magnitude what is divisible into continuous
ones; and one sort of magnitude that is continuous in one direction is
length, another sort, of what is continuous in two directions, is width,
and another sort, of what is continuous in three, is depth. Of these,
finite multitude is number, finite length a line, finite width a surface,
and finite depth a bodily solid.
Further, some things are said to be so-much in their own right, but
other things incidentally, as a line is a certain amount in its own right,
1 5 And it is by a further alteration and inversion that we speak of the products of the
numerical measures of geometrical lines as powers. The Greek word refers to the line
itself, as potentially the side of a square or a cube, and thus roughly corresponds to
our use of the word root.
1 6 This repeated qualification throughout this chapter is meant to distinguish a
·
potency from a nature. See Ch. 4 above.

but an educated thing is so incidentally. And among the ones that are so
in their own right, some are so by virtue of their thinghood, in the way
that a line is so-much (for in the articulation that says what it is there is
present a certain so-much), but others are attributes and states of that 1 020a 20
sort of independent thing, such as the many and the few, the long and
the short, the wide and the narrow, the deep and the shallow, and other
such things. And also the large and the small, and the greater and the
less, spoken of both in themselves and in relation to each other, are in
their own right attributes of what is so-much; these names, however,
are also transferred to other things.l7 But among things that are said
too be so-much incidentally, some are so called in the way that the
educated and the white were said to be, because that to which they
belong is of a certain amount, but others in the way that motion and
time are; for these are said to be of certain amounts and continuous 1 020a 30
because those things of which these are attributes are divisible. I mean
not the thing moved but that through which it was moved, for because
that is so-much, the motion too is so-much, and the time because that
is.
Chapter 14 Of what sort something is said to be means in one way

the specific difference of its thinghood, in the sense that a human being
is a certain sort of animal because it is two footed, but a horse because it
is four footed, and a circle is a certain sort of figure because it is without
angles, as though a quality is the specific difference corresponding to 1 020b
the thinghood. And while this is one way that quality is meant, in
another way it is attributed to motionless and mathematical things, as
numbers are of certain sorts, such as composite nurnbers,18 which are
not only along one line but have the plane and the solid as images (and
these are so-many-times-so-many or so-many-times-so-many-times
so-many), and in general what is present in the thinghood besides
quantity; for the thinghood of each is what it is once, in the way that
the thinghood of things that are six is not what they are twice or three
times, but what they are once, since six is once six. Also, all things
that are attributes of moving things are qualities, such as hotness and
1 7 An example is a long action (Categories 5b 4).

1 8 These are all the numbers that are not prime. They sort themselves into many quasi
visible kinds, including not only square numbers, but also triangular ones, pentagonal
ones, etc., as well as logical classes such as even-times-even, etc.
96 Book V (Book L\) Chapter 1 4
1 020b 1 0 coldness, or whiteness and blackness, or heaviness and lightness, and

whatever is such, according to which bodies are said to alter when they
change. Again, things are said to be of-this-sort in relation to excellence
and deficiency or to the good and bad in general.
So of-this-sort could be meant in pretty much two ways, and of
these one is the most authoritative; for the primary sense of quality is
the specific difference of the thinghood (and quality among number
is a part of this, for it is a certain specific difference of independent
things, but either not of moving things or of them not as moving),
while the other senses are the attributes of moving things as moving,
and the specific differences of motions. Excellence and deficiency form
1 020b 20 one part among the attributes, since they reveal distinctions of motion
and of being-at-work, as a consequence of which the things that are in
motion act and are acted upon in a good or an indifferent way; for being
able to move and be at work in such-and-such a way is good, whole
doing so in such-and-such a contrary way is deficient. But most of all,
good and bad signify of what sort something is in the case of things
with souls, and of these most of all among those that have choice.
Chapter 15 Some things are said to be relative in the way that

double is relative to half or triple to one-third, or generally the multiple
to what is one of many parts, or what exceeds to what is exceeded;
others are meant in the way that what can heat is relative to what can
1 020b 30 be heated, or what can cut to what can be cut, and generally what
is active to what is passive; others are meant in the way that what is
measured is relative to its measure, or what is knowable to knowledge,
or what is perceptible to perception.
The first sort are meant in reference to number either simply or
determinately; relative either to given numbers or to one. (For example,
the double is a determinate number in relation to one, while the
multiple is related to one by number but not a determinate number
1 021 a such as this or that, but the half-again is related to what it is half
again by a number in relation to a determinate number, while what
is a fraction more is related to what it is a fraction more than by an
indeterminate number, in just the way that the multiple is to one; but
what exceeds is related to what it exceeds in a way that is completely
undetermined by number. For number is commensurable, and what
is not commensurable is not called a number, but what exceeds in
relation to what it exceeds is both that much and more, and this more
(
Book V (Book M Chapter 1 5 97
is indeterminate, since it is whichever of the two it happens to be,

either an equal or not an equal part.19) So all these are spoken of as
relative by reference to number and are attributes of number, as are
also the equal and the similar and the same, but in another way. (For 1 021 a 1 0
they are all meant in reference to a one, since those things are the same
of which the thinghood is one, similar of which the quality is one, and
equal of which the amount is one; but one is the source and measure
of number, so that all these things are called relative by reference to
number, but not in the same way.)
Things are called active and passive by reference to active or passive
potency and to the being-at-work of these potencies; for example, what
causes heat is related to what can be heated because it is capable of
heating it, and again what is heating is related to what is being heated
or what is cutting to what is being cut as being atwork upon it. But there
is no being-at-work of numerical relations other than in the way that 1 02 1 a 20
is mentioned in another place,20 since activities that involve motion
do not belong to them. And of relations by way of potency; some are
meant as related to what has been acted upon and what will act to
what will be acted upon. For it is also in this way that a father is said to
be a father of a son, since the one is a thing that has acted, and the other
a thing that has been acted upon. Further, some things are related by
a lack of potency as being incapable and whatever is said in that way;
such as the invisible.
So the things that are said to be relative by number or potency are
relative because the very things that they are refer to something else,
but not because something else is related to them, but what is measured
or known or thought about is said to be relative because something 1 02 1 a 30
else refers to it. For the thinkable indicates that there is thinking about
it, but the thinking is not relative to that of which it is the thinking21
1 9 If the remainder is not commensurable with the whole, no number of equal

fractional parts of it can equal the whole. Quantitative relations are therefore of three
main kinds: determinate and numerical, numerical but indeterminate, and incapable
of any numerical determinacy. Ever since Descartes, in his Geometry, collapsed the
ideas of multitude and magnitude into one in the "number line," we have lost the last
of these distinctions, speaking not of what has no numerical ratio, but of "irrational
ratios.��
20 See Physics 263a 23-263b 7, where Zeno's famous infinity of half-distances is
shown to be present only potentially.
21 What is thought about is something in itself and not inherently a thought-object.
98 Book V (Book t.) Chapter 1 5
(for the same thing would be being said twice), and similarly sight is
1 021 b the sight of something, but not of that of which it is the sight (though
it is true to say this), but relative to color or to some other such thing.
But in the former way the same thing will have been said twice, that
it is the sight of that of which it is the sight.
Now things that are called relative in their own right are in some
cases so called in these ways, but in others because the classes to which
they belong are of this sort; for example medical skill is among relative
things because its genus, knowledge, seems to be something relative.
Also, things are called relative by reference to the things that have
them, such as equality because of the equal or similarity because of
the similar. Other things are relative incidentally, as a human being is
1 021 b 1 0 relative because he happens to be double of something, and this is one
of the relations, or the white is relative if the same thing is incidentally
double and white.
Chapter 16 Complete means, in one sense, that of which it is

impossible to find even one of its parts in any way outside it (as the
complete time of each thing is that outside of which it is not possible
to find any time which is part of that one), and also means that which
has nothing of its kind exceeding it in excellence or rightness, as
someone is called the complete doctor or the complete flutist when
they lack nothing of the excellence appropriate to their kinds (and by
transferring this meaning to bad things, we speak of a perfect slanderer
1 021 b 20 or a complete thief and therefore even call them good, a good thief or
a good slanderer). And excellence is a certain completeness, for each
thing is complete and every sort of thinghood is complete at the time
when the form of its proper excellence lacks no part of the fullness
it has by nature. And further, those things are said to be complete to
which a good end belongs, since it is by having the end that they are
complete, and so, since the end is one of the extremes, transferring
the meaning, we speak of degenerate things as completely ruined or
completely decayed, when they lack nothing of ruin and evll but are
at the extreme point of them. And for this reason even death is by a
The relation is therefore not mutual, like the other two kinds, but one sided. See the
note at the end of Bk. IV, Ch. 5.
Book V (Book <1) Chapter 1 8 99
transference of meaning called an end, because both are extremes, and

the end for the sake of which something is is an extreme. 1 02 1 b 30
So things that are called complete in their own right are meant in
that many ways, some by lacking nothing with respect to rightness,
having no superior, and there being nothing to find outside them, but 1 022a
others entirely on account of having no superior in their own kinds
nor having anything outside them. The rest result directly from these
either by making something be that way, or having something of that
sort, or being appropriate to some such thing, or in some way or other
being applied to the things that are called complete in the primary
sense.
Chapter 17 Limit means the extremity of each thing, the first thing
outside of which there is nothing to find and the first thing inside
of which everything is, which is also the form of a magnitude or of
something that has magnitude; and it means the end of each thing
(and of this sort is that toward which its motion or action tends, but
not that from which it starts, though sometimes it is both and consists
of that from which as well as that toward which), and that for the
sake of which it is, and the thinghood of each thing, and what it is for
each thing to be; for the latter is a boundary of knowledge, and if of 1 022a 1 0
the knowledge, also of the thing. It is clear, therefore, that in however
many ways source is meant, limit too is meant, and in yet more ways;
for a source is a limit, but not every limit is a source.
Chapter 18 That by which is meant in many ways; in one sense it

is the form or thinghood of each thing, as that by which something is
good is the good itself, but in a sense it means the primary thing in
which something naturally comes to be, such as color in a surface. So
the primary meaning of that by which is the form, but secondarily it
is used of the material of each thing and the primary thing underlying
it. But in general that by which will be appropriate in the same number
of ways as cause; for one says either "by what reason did he come?" or 1 022a 20
"for the sake of what did he come?" and either "by means of what did
he make a mistake or draw a conclusion?" or "what is the cause of the
conclusion or of the mistake?" And also by which is used by reference
1 00 Book V (Book Ll) Chapter 1 8
to a position which one stands by or walks by,22 since all these uses
indicate a position or a place.
Therefore by itself must also be meant in many ways. For in one
sense the by itself is what it is for each thing to be; for instance Callias
by virtue of himself is Callias and what it is for Callias to be. But in a
sense it means all the things that are present in what something is, as
Callias by virtue of himself is an animal, since animal is a constituent
1 022a 30 in his articulation because Callias is a certain kind of animal. And also
it means anything that something receives in itself primarily; or in any
of its parts, in the way that a surface is white by virtue of itself or a
human being lives by virtue of himself; for the soul is a part of the
human being, and in it living primarily resides. Also it means that
for which no other thing is responsible; for there are many causes of
a human being, such as animalness and two-footedness, but still by
himself a human being is a human being. Also it means all those things
that belong to something alone, insofar as it is alone, for which reason
what is separated is by itself.
1 022b Chapter 19 Disposition means an ordering of something that has

parts, either in place or in power or in kind; for it has to have some
sort of position, as the name disposition indicates.
Chapter 20 An active state of something is meant in one sense as

a certain being-at-work of the thing that has it and what it has, just
as if it were a certain action or motion (for whenever one thing does
something and another has it done to it there is a doing shared between
them, and so too between someone who has clothes on and the clothes
he has on there is a shared state of having) . So in this sense it is clear that
it is not possible to have a state of having (since it would go on to infinity
1 022b 1 0 if there were to be a having of the state of having what something has).
But in another sense an active state means a disposition by which the
thing disposed is in a good or bad condition, either in its own right or
in relation to something else, in the way that health is an active state,
since it is that sort of disposition. And it is also called an active state if
22 More properly "at which one stands or along which one walks." The range of
meanings of kata has no single English equivalent, but the translation chosen here is
the simplest one that most nearly fits the most uses.
there is a part of such a disposition, for which reason the excellence of

the parts is also a certain active state.
Chapter 21 An attribute means in one sense a quality in respect to

which something is capable of being altered, such as white and black,
or sweet and bitter, or heaviness and lightness, or whatever else is
of this sort. But in a sense it is used of these when they are at work
and have already been altered. But more than these, it implies harmful
alterations and motions, and especially painful harm.23 Also, great 1 022b 20
misfortunes are called suffering.
Chapter 22 Lacking is meant in one way of what does not have

something that it is natural to have, even though it is not it that is
of such a nature as to have it, in the way that a plant is said to lack
eyes; and in a sense it is used of what does not have something that
is natural to have for either it or the class of things it belongs to, as
in different senses a human being who is blind and a mole lack eyes,
the one in respect to its class and the other in its own right. Also it is
used of what does not have something that is natural to have when it
is natural to have it, for blindness is a lack, but one is not blind at any
age but only if one does not have sight at the age when it is natural
to have it. Likewise, it is used of what does not have something in the 1 022b 30
conditions, or by the means, or in the relation, or in the manner that it
is natural to have it. And the violent taking away of anything is called
a depriving.
And in as many ways as negations are expressed by means of
prefixes and suffixes, in so many ways are deprivations also expressed.
For a thing is called unequal for not having an equality natural to it,
or invisible for either not having any color at all or having a faint
one, or footless for either not having feet at all or having inadequate
ones. Also, negations are used for what has little of something, such 1 023a
as seedless fruit, and this is in a way to have it inadequately. And they
are also used of what has something but not easily or well, as a thing
is called uncuttable not only for not being able to be cut, but also for
23 Chapters 1 9-21 form a cluster. A disposition may be transitory but an active state
holds on and continues; an attribute may also be enduring but is a passive state. But
the meaning of pathos spans all passive conditions from the most indifferent to great
afflictions; no English word hits both notes in a similar way.
1 02 Book V (Book �) Chapter 22
not being able to be cut easily or well. Still, they sometimes mean what
does not have something in any way, for someone who is one eyed is
not called blind, but only one who lacks sight in both eyes, for which
reason not everyone is good or bad, or just or unjust, but there are also
in-betweens.
Chapter 23 Having is meant in many ways, in one sense as keeping

something else in accordance with something's own nature or impulse,
1 023a 1 0 for which reason a fever is said to have hold of a human being, or
tyrants to have hold of cities, or those wearing clothes to have them
on. But in a sense it means that in which something is present as a
thing receptive of it, as bronze has the form of a statue, or the body
has a disease. And in a sense it is used in the way that what surrounds
has what is surrounded, for a thing is said to be had by that in which
it is contained, as we say a pitcher has a liquid, a city has people, or a
ship has sailors, and in this sense too, the whole has the parts. Also,
what obstructs something from moving or acting by its own impulse
is said to have hold of it, as columns have hold of the heavy things
1 023a 20 that press down on them, and as poets make Atlas hold heaven, as
though it would fall down to earth, just as some of the writers about
nature also say. And in this way too what is continuous is said to hold
together what it connects, as though it would be separated apart by
each part's own impulse. And being-in something is meant in ways
that reflect and correspond to having.
Chapter 24 To be from something means in one sense that a thing

is made out of it as material, and this in two ways, as either the highest
genus or lowest species, since there is one sense in which all things
that melt are made of water, but another sense in which a statue is
made of bronze. But in a sense it is meant in the way that something
1 023a 30 comes from a first source that sets it in motion. (For example, from
what did the fight come? From insults, because these were the source
of the fight.) And in a sense it means the way that something is from
the composite of material and form, just as the parts are from the whole
and the verse is from the iliad and the stones are from the house; for
the form is an end, and it is what has its end that is complete. And in
some cases it is meant in the way that the form is derived from its part,
as humanness from two-footedness and the syllable from the letter;
1 023b for this is so in different way from that in which the statue is made
Book V (Book .<i) Chapter 26 1 03
of bronze, since the composite independent thing is made of sensible

material, but the form is made of intelligible material. So some things
are meant in these ways, but others because something is applicable
to these ways by means of some part, as the child comes from a father
and mother or plants from the earth because they come from some part
of them. And in a sense it means that after which something comes in
time, as night from day or a storm from a calm, because the one is after
the other; and among these, some are spoken of in this way for having
a change into each other, as in the things just mentioned, but others
for being successive in time only, as the sailing was from the equinox 1 023b 1 0
because it started after the equinox, and the Thargelian festival comes
from the Dionysian because it is after the Dionysian.
Chapter 25 A part means in one sense that into which a quantity

is divided in any way whatever (for always what is taken away from a
quantity as a quantity is said to be a part of it, as two is in a way called
part of three), but in another sense it means only those among such
things that measure off the whole without remainder, so while two is
in one way called part of three, in another way it is not. Also, the things
into which the form is divided apart from quantity are called parts of
it, for which reason people say that the species are parts of the genus.
Also, it means the things into which a whole is divided or of which it is
composed, the whole being either a form or the thing that has a form; 1 023b 20
for example, of a bronze sphere or a bronze cube, both the bronze (that
is, the material in which the form is present) and the angle are parts.
Also, it means the things that are in the articulation that reveals each
thing, and these are parts of the whole, for which reason the genus is
also called part of the species, though in another way the species is
part of the genus.
Chapter 26 A whole means that of which no part is absent out of

those of which it is said to be a whole by nature, or that which includes
what it includes in such a way that they are some one thing. The latter
can happen in two ways: either such that each is one or so that the
one thing is made out of them. For a universal, which is attributed to
a whole class of things as though it were a certain whole, is universal 1 023b 30
in the sense that it includes many things by being predicated of each,
and that they are all one each-by-each, as are a human being, a horse,
and a god, because they are all living things; but what is continuous
1 04 Book V (Book il) Chapter 26
and finite is a whole whenever some one thing is made of a number

of things, most of all when they are distinct constituents of it only
potentially, but if not, actively as well. And among these themselves,
those that are of this sort by nature are wholes more so than are those
that are so by art, just as we also said in the case of oneness, since
1 024a wholeness is a certain kind of oneness. Also, what has quantity has a
beginning, middle, and end, and any quantity in which position makes
no difference is spoken of as "all," while any in which it does make a
difference is called a whole. All those that admit of being both ways are
both whole and all, and these are all those things of which the nature
stays the same through a rearrangement but the form does not, such
as wax or a cloak, for each of these is spoken of both as a whole and as
all, since it has both conditions. But water, and as many things as are
liquid, and a number are spoken of as all, but one does not speak of the
whole number or the whole water except by some altered meaning.
And everything that is spoken of as all when it is referred to as one
1 024a 1 0 thing, is spoken of as "every" when it is referred to as divided up: all
this is a number, but every one of these is a unit.
Chapter 27 Defective is applied to things that have quantity, but

not to any random one, since it has to be made of parts and also be a
whole. For two is not defective if one of its ones is taken away (for the
defective thing is never equal to the part left off), nor is any number
at all, for it is also necessary that an independent thing persist; for a
cup to be defective it must still be a cup, but a number is no longer the
same thing. And on top of these things, even if something is of unlike
parts, not even all of these can be defective (since a number too in a
way has unlike parts, such as two and three), but in general, none of
those things in which position makes no difference can be defective,
1 024a 20 such as water or fire, but such things have to be of the sort that have
position on account of their thinghood. Also, they must be continuous,
for a harmony consists of unlike parts that have position, but it cannot
become defective. And beyond this, not even those things that are
wholes are defective by lacking any part whatever. For it is necessary
that they lack neither the parts that are decisive to their thinghood
nor those that are just of any sort whatever; for example, if a cup is
pierced it is not defective, but it is if it lacks its handle or any prominent
part, and a human being is not defective if he lacks some flesh or his
spleen, but he is if he lacks some extremity, and not just any of those
Book V (Book .1.) Chapter 29 1 05
but one which cannot grow back when it is completely removed. For
this reason bald men are not defective.
Chapter 28 A kind is spoken of in one way if there is continuous

generation of things that have the same form, in the sense that "as 1 024a 30
long as there is a human kind" means " as long as there is a continuous
generation of human beings" and in another way it means the first
mover from which things were brought into being, for it is in this
way that Hellenes or Ionians are spoken of as a kind, on account of
being descended from either Hellen or Ion as a first progenitor, and
this is more the case with those who are descended from a progenitor
than those from a material stock (though a kind is also spoken of as
coming from the female line, as with the descendants of Pyrrha). And
it is meant in the way that plane is the kind to which plane figures 1 024b
belong and solid is that of solid ones, for each figure is either such
and-such a plane or such-and-such a solid, and this is what underlies
their specific differences. It also means the primary constituent in the
articulation of something, which is stated in saying what it is; for this is
its kind, of which its qualities are stated as specific differences. So kind
is meant in that many ways: by reference to continuous generation of
the same form, to a first mover that is alike in form, or as material. For
that to which the specific difference and the quality belong is some
underlying thing, which we call material.
And different in kind means things which have different things 1 024b 1 0
primarily underlying them, which cannot be reduced one to the
other or both to the same thing; for example, form and material are
different in kind, as are all those things that are meant in reference
to different ways of predicating being (for some things signify what
beings are, others of what sort they are, and others the things that were
distinguished above24), since these are not reducible at all, neither into
one another nor into any one thing.
Chapter 29 False is meant in one way in the sense that a thing is

false, and in this way one sort of falsity is because the thing doesn't
go together or cannot be put together (in the way that one claims the
diagonal to be commensurable or you to be sitting down, for one of 1 024b 20
24 At 1 01 7a 23-27.
1 06 Book V (Book �) Chapter 29
these is false always and the other sometimes, since these things are
not that way), and another sort includes things which are, but which
naturally seem to be either of a sort that they are not, or things that
are not (for instance a perspective drawing or dreams, for these are
something, but not what they produce the appearance of). Things,
then, are said to be false in this way, either because they are not, or
because the appearance of them is of something that is not.
Now a statement is false which is about things that are not, insofar
as it is false, for which reason every statement is false about something
other than that about which it is true, as what is true of the circle is
false about the triangle. And of each thing there is a sense in which
there is one statement, which says what it is for it to be, but there
1 024b 30 is another sense in which there are many statements, since the thing
itself and the thing when it has been affected are in a certain way
the same, such as Socrates and the educated Socrates (but a false
statement is not a statement about anything simply). For this reason
Antisthenes believed simplemindedly that nothing was fit to be said
except a thing's own articulation, one statement for one thing, from
which it followed that there could be no contradicting, and practically
no making a mistake. But is it possible to speak of each thing not only
by its articulation but also by that of something else, and this either
1 025a completely falsely, or it is possible in a way also truly, as eight is called
double by means of the articulation of two.
Some things, then, are called false in these ways, and a false
human being is one who skillfully and deliberately makes use of such
statements, for no other reason but for its own sake, andwho foists such
statements onto other people, in the same way that we also said that
things are false which produce a false appearance. For this reason the
argument in the Hippias25 goes wrong in saying that the same person is
false and true. For it takes the one who is capable of deceiving as being
false (and this is the one who knows and has understanding), and
further assumes that the one who willingly does low things is better
1 025a 1 0 than one who does so unwillingly. But this takes something false out
of a survey of examples, for the one who limps willingly is better off
25 Plato's Lesser Hippias. Aristotle is not arguing with Plato, but answering Socrates's
invitation to see through the confusion in Hippias's thinking. Hippias is depicted as
an empty-headed professor who can speak expertly about Homer but cannot make
elementary distinctions.
Book V (Book Li) Chapter 30 1 07
than the one who does so unwillingly if limping means imitating a

limp, since if one is in fact willingly lame he is perhaps worse off, just
as in the case of moral character, in this one too.
Chapter 30 Incidental means what belongs to something and is

true to say of it, but is not so either necessarily or for the most part,
such as if someone who dug a hole for a plant found a treasure. This
finding a treasure is incidental to the one who dug the hole, for it is
neither by necessity that the one comes from the other or with the other,
nor for the most part that one who plants something finds a treasure.
And someone with a refined education might be of a pale complexion, 1 025a 20
but since this happens neither by necessity nor for the most part, we
call it incidental. Therefore, since there is something that belongs and
something it belongs to, and some of these are present at a certain
place and time, whatever belongs to something, but not because it
is this thing or at this time or in this place, will be incidental. And so
there is not any definite cause of what is incidental, but a chance cause,
and this is indeterminate. It happened incidentally to someone to go
to Aegina, if he arrived not because of an intention to go there, but
because he was driven off course by a storm or taken by pirates. The
incidental thing is indeed something that has happened or is, but by
virtue not of itself but of something else; for the storm was the cause
of his going somewhere he was not headed for. 1 025a 30
But incidental is also meant in another way, as of all those things
that do belong to each thing in virtue of itself but are not present in the
thinghood of them; for instance, it is incidental to a triangle to contain
two right angles. Incidental attributes of this kind can be everlasting,
but none of the former kind can be. But an account of this is in other
writings.26
26 This second type of incidental attribute is proper (idion) to the thing it belongs to,
and in the logical writings it is called by that name and usually translated as "property."
See for example Topics 1 02a 1 8-3 1 . In the strictest sense, what a triangle is in its own
right, in virtue of itself, is just a plane figure with three angles and straight sides.
Because it is that, it also incidentally contains two right angles, and even though that
property is both necessary and sufficient to identify a triangle, it is derivative from
what makes it a triangle.
Book VI (Book E)
Primary and Derivative Kinds of Being1
Chapter 1 The sources and causes of beings are being inquired 1 025b 3
after, but clearly only insofar as they are beings. For there is something
that is responsible for health and for fitness, and among mathematical
things there are sources and elements and causes, and in general every
kind of knowledge that is discursive, or takes part in any way in
thinking things through, is concerned with causes and sources, of
either a more precise or a simpler kind. But all of these draw a line
around some particular being and some particular class of things and
busy themselves with that, but they give no account at all of being
simply as being nor of what something is, but starting from this, in 1 025b 1 0
some cases by making it evident to the senses, in others taking what
the thing is as a hypothesis, in this way they demonstrate the properties
that belong in their own right to the class of things they are concerned
with, demonstrating them in either a more necessary or a looser way.
For this reason it is clear by such a review of examples that there is no
demonstration of the thinghood or the what-it-is of things, but some
other means of pointing to it. Similarly, they do not speak at all about
whether the class of things they busy themselves with even is or is not,
since it belongs to the same act of thinking to make clear both what
something is and whether it is.
And since the kind of knowledge that pertains to nature also
happens to be about a particular class of beings (since it is about the 1 025b 20
sort of independent thing that has a source of motion and rest in itself),
it is clear that it is not concerned with action or production (for the
source of things made is in the maker, either intelligence or skill or
some power, and the source of actions is in the one who acts, and is
choice, since an action and a choice are the same thing), and so, if all
thinking tends toward action, production, or contemplation, the study
of nature would be one of the contemplative kinds, but contemplative
of the sort of being that is capable of being moved, and of the kind of
thinghood which by its very meaning is for the most part not separate
only. But it is necessary that what concerns what it is for something to
1 This title for Book VI supplied by the translator.

110 Book VI (Book E) Chapter 1
1 025b 30 be and its articulation in speech not be ignored, since inquiring without
this is doing nothing at all. But among things that are defined and the
kinds of what-it-is of things, some are like the snub and other like the
concave. And these differ because the snub is conceived along with
its material (since what is snub is a concave nose), while concavity is
without sensible material. So if all natural things are meant in a way
1 026a similar to the snub, as for example nose, eye, face, flesh, bone, animal
in general, leaf, root, bark, and plant in general (for the meaning of
none of them leaves out motion, but they all have material), it is clear
how one must look for and define what is it for natural things to be,
and also why it belongs to the one who studies them to pay attention
to some aspect of the soul, namely as much of it as is not without
materiai.2
That, then, the study of nature is contemplative is clear from these
things, but mathematics is also contemplative, though whether it is
about things that are motionless and separate is not now clear; it is
clear, however, that it studies some mathematical things insofar as they
1 026a 1 0 are motionless and insofar as they are separate. But if there is anything
that is everlasting and motionless and separate, it is obvious that the
knowledge of it belongs to a contemplative study, though surely not
to the study of nature, nor to mathematics, but to one that precedes
them both. For the study of nature concerns things that are indeed
separate, but are not motionless, while some mathematics concerns
things that are indeed motionless, but presumably not separate, but
in truth in material; but the first contemplative study concerns things
that are both separate and motionless.
And while it is necessary that all causes be everlasting,3 these are
so most of all, since they are responsible for what appears to us of
the divine. Therefore there would be three sorts of contemplative
philosophy, the mathematical, the natural, and the theological; for
1 026a 20 it is not hard to see that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present
in a nature of this kind, and that the most honorable study must be
2 A human being is not simply natural, for while soul and body are inseparably one,
just like wax and the shape impressed in it (On the Sou/4 1 2b 6-8), the intellect has no
bodily organ (429a 26-27), but comes in "through the door" (Generation of Animals
736b 27-28).
3 See 1 01 3a 1 7-23. Since all causes are sources, they cannot have other sources, but
must be self-explanatory and self-sustaining.
Book VI (Book E) Chapter 2 111
about the most honorable class of things. The contemplative studies,

then, are more worthy of choice than are the other kinds of knowledge,
and this one is more worthy of choice than are the other contemplative
studies.
One might raise an impasse whether first philosophy is universal
or is concerned with a certain class of things and some one nature
(for these are not the same way of going about things in mathematics
either, but geometry or astronomy is about a certain kind of nature,
while universal mathematics is common to them all4). Now if there
were no other independent thing besides the composite natural ones,
the study of nature would be the primary kind of knowledge; but if
there is some motionless independent thing, the knowledge of this 1 026a 30
precedes it and is first philosophy, and it is universal in just that way,
because it is firstS And it belongs to this sort of philosophy to study
being as being, both what it is and what belongs to it just by virtue of
being.
Chapter 2 But since being, spoken of simply; is meant in more than

one way, of which one is incidental, another is as the true (and nonbeing
as the false), and besides these there are the modes of predication (such
as what, of what sort, how much, where, and when something is,
and anything else "is" means in this way), and still besides all these 1 026b
being-potentially and being-at-work-since, that is, being is meant in
so many ways, one ought first to say about the incidental kind that
there is no contemplative study of it. For it is a sign of this that it
is not the business of any kind of knowledge to be concerned with
it, neither the knowledge that aims at action, nor that which aims
at making something, nor that which aims at contemplation. For the
one who makes a house does not make all the things that come along
incidentally with the house at the same time that it comes into being
(for they are infinite, for nothing prevents what is made from being
pleasant to some people, obnoxious to others, and useful to still others,
and different, one might say, from everything that is, with none of
which the housebuilding craft is concerned), and in the same way, the 1 026b 1 0
4 This sort of mathematics may be found in Book V of Euclid's Elements.

5 See Bk. IV, Ch. 1 , and its footnote. Being as being is not the lowest common
denominator of all that is, universal because nothing lacks it, but the highest, divine,
kind of being, universal because everything else depends on it for its being.
112 Book VI (Book E) Chapter 2
geometer does not study the things that are incidental in this way to
figures, nor whether "triangle" is different from "triangle containing
two right angles." And this is in accord with good sense, for the
incidental is as though it were only a word.
For this reason Plato's assignment of sophistry to what concerns
nonbeing was in a certain way not bad.6 For the arguments of the
sophists are, one might say, most of all about what is incidental:
whether educated and literate are different or the same, and whether
educated Coriscus is the same as Coriscus, and, if everything that is,
but is not always, has come into being, that it follows that, if one who
1 026b 20 was educated became literate, then also one who was literate became
educated, and all the other arguments that are of this kind. For it is
obvious that what is incidental is something close to what is not. And
this is clear also from this sort of argument: there is coming into being
and passing away of things that are in some other sense, but not of
things that are incidentally? But one ought, nevertheless, still to say
about the incidental, to the extent that it is possible, what the nature of
it is and through what cause it is, for atthe same time itwill presumably
also be clear why there is no knowledge of it.
Since, then, among beings, some are always and necessarily in the
same condition, meaning this not in the sense that it is by force but
1 026b 30 as what is not capable of being otherwise, while others are as they
are neither necessarily nor always, but for the most part, this is the
source and this is the cause of there being what is incidental; for what
is neither always nor for the most part is what we say is incidentaLS
For instance, if a storm and cold weather should come about in the
dog days of summer, we say that this is incidental, but not if there is
heat and stifling air, since the latter happens always or for the most
part, but the former does not. And it is incidental to a human being
6 This is the seventh and final definition of the sophist in the dialogue of that name,
which depends upon understanding an image as a way in which non being is present.
More than half the dialogue, from 263E on, is devoted to justifying this claim.
7 One of Aristotle's examples elsewhere is of a housebuilder who plays the flute. Your
house may happen to have been built by a flute player, but it didn't come into being
as such, since the builder's knowledge of flute playing didn't direct the making of
it. Incidental attributes just attach to things, without having been worked into the
texture of them.
8 That is, since the regularity of the things around us is not always rigid, there is room
around the edges of things for all sorts of incidental attributes.
Book VI (Book E) Chapter 2 l l3
to be pale (since it is so neither always nor for the most part), but it is
not incidentally that he is an animal. And for a housebuilder to cure
someone is incidental, because it is not natural for a housebuilder but 1 027a
for a doctor to do that, but the housebuilder incidentally was a doctor.
And a fancy chef, aiming at pleasure, might make something healthful,
but not on account of his skill as a fancy chef; for this reason it was
incidental, we say, and there is a sense in which he made the healthful
food, but in the simple sense of "make" he did not.
For some things are results of capacities to produce other things,
while others result from no definite art or capacity; for of what is or
happens incidentally, the cause too is incidental. Therefore, since not all
things are or happen necessarily and always, but most things are and 1 027a 1 0
happen for the most part, it is necessary that there be incidental being.
For instance, it is neither always nor for the most part that someone
pale has a refined education, but since it sometimes happens, it will
be incidental (or if not, everything would be by necessity). Therefore,
it will be the material that is capable of being otherwise than it is for
the most part, that is the cause of what is incidental. But one must take
this as a starting point, whether there is nothing that is neither always
nor for the most part the case, or whether this is impossible. So there
is something besides these that is whichever way it chances to be and
is incidental.
But while there are things that are so for the most part, does nothing
belong to anything always, or are some things everlasting? One must
examine these things later, but it is clear that there is no knowledge of 1 027a 20
what is incidental, since all knowledge is of what is so always or for the
most part-for how else will anyone learn or teach? For it is necessary
to make something definite by means of what it is always or for the
most part, such as that milk-and-honey is for the most part beneficial
to one who has a fever-but what happens contrary to this one will
not be able to say, when it is not so, such as on the new moon; for what
happens on the new moon will also be the case either always or for the
most part, but the incidental is something besides these. What, then,
the incidental is, and through what cause it is,9 and that there is no
knowledge of it, have been said.
. 9 That the material of things is capable of being other than it usually is makes room
for incidental attributes, and so, while it is not a sufficient cause for their occurrence,
it secures their possibility.
1 14 Book VI (Book E) Chapter 3
1 027a 30 Chapter 3 That there are sources and causes which come and go
without being in a process of coming-into-being or passing-away is
evident. For if this were not so, all things would be by necessity, if
there must be some nonincidental cause of what is coming into being
or passing away. For will this particular thing be the case or not? It
will if this other thing has happened, but if not, not. But that one will
happen if some other thing has happened. And it is clear in this way
1 027b that by always taking some time away from a finite time one will
come to the present, so that this person will die by violence, if he goes
outside, and will do this if he gets thirsty, and that if something else
happens, and in this way one will come to what is now present, or to
something that has happened. For example, he will get thirsty if he eats
spicy food, and this is either the case or not, so that it is by necessity
that he is killed or is not killed. And similarly if one jumps back to the
past, the account is the same; for this already belongs to something
(I mean the thing that has happened). Therefore everything that is
going to happen will be by necessity. For example, one who is alive
1 027b 1 0 will necessarily die because of something that has already come about,
such as contrary tendencies in the same body. But whether he will die
by disease or violence is not yet necessary, but only if some particular
thing has happened. Therefore it is clear that the result goes back as
far as some starting point, but this no longer goes back to anything
else. This, then, will be the origin of what happens in whichever way
it chances to, and nothing else will be responsible for its happening.
But to what sort of source and what sort of cause such tracing back
has gone, whether to material or to that for the sake of which or to a
mover, one needs to examine with the greatest care.lO
Chapter 4 Let the things that concern incidental being be set aside,
1 0 The preceding chapter argued that a material cause of anything incidental must
be present, and this chapter shows how the other two kinds mentioned here might
be more governing. The spicy food is an external source of motion, but the human
being still chooses to go outside for the sake of getting water, and this final cause is
primary in that example. In his most thorough account of chance, Physics Bk. II, Ch.
4-6 and 8, Aristotle shows that all chance events, and hence all incidental being, trace
back to an interference of final causes. This requires establishing that all natural events
are for the sake of ends. Here it is sufficient for his argument to show that incidental
being lacks the knowable determinacy of what happens always or for the most part.
A brief excerpt from the Physics, at the end of Bk. XI, Ch. 8, below, makes explicit that
incidental being is always derivative from things that are for the sake of something.
Book VI (Book E) Chapter 4 115
since it has been marked off sufficiently. But since being as the true and
nonbeing as the false concern combining and separating, and the whole 1 027b 20
topic concerns the division of a pair of contradictories (for truth has
the affirmation in the case of a combination and the denial in the case
of a separation, while the false has the contradictory of this division,
but how it happens that one thinks things together or apart is another
story-I mean together and apart in such a way that they are not in
sequence but become some one thing), since the false and the true are
not in things, as if, say, the good were true and the bad automatically
false, but in thinking, and not even in thinking in what concerns simple
things and what things are, then whatever one needs to pay attention to
about this sort of being and nonbeing should be examined later11; but
since the intertwining and dividing are in thinking but not in things, 1 027b 30
and being of this sort is different from the being of what is in the
governing sense (for thinking attaches or separates what something
is, or that it is of this sort, or that it is this much, or anything else it
might be), both being as what is incidental and being as what is true
must be set aside. For the cause of the one is indeterminate and of
the other is some attribute of thinking, and both kinds concern the 1 028a
remaining kind of being, and do not reveal any nature that is outside
this sort of being; for this reason let them be set aside, but what must
be examined are the causes and sources of being itself, as being.
1 1 See Bk. IX, Ch. 1 0.

Book VII (Book Z)
Thinghood and Form1
Chapter 1 Being is meant i n more than one way, just as we 1 028a 1 0

distinguished earlier in the chapters concerning the number of ways
things are meant.2 For it signifies what something is and a this, but
also of what sort or how much something is, or any of the other things
attributed in that way. But while being is meant in so many ways, it
is obvious that the way that is first among these is what something is,
which indicates its thinghood (for whenever we say that this or that is
of a particular sort, we say that it is either good or bad, but not three
feet long or a human being, but when we say what it is, we say not that
it is white or hot or three feet long, but a human being or a god), and
the other kinds of being are attributed to something that is in this way,
some of them as amounts of it, others as qualities of it, others as things
that happen to it, and others as something else of that kind. And for 1 028a 20
this reason, someone might be at an impasse whether each thing such
as walking or healing or sitting is or is not a being, and similarly with
anything else whatever of such a kind; for none of them is either of
such a nature as to be by itself nor capable of being separated from an
independent thing, but instead, if anything, it is the thing that walks
or sits or gets well that is one of the beings. And it is obvious that these
are more so, because there is something determinate that underlies
them (and this is the independent thing or the particular), which is
reflected in a predicate of such a kind; for the good or the seated are
not meant apart from this. So it is clear that each of those former things 1 028a 30
is by means of this one, so that what is primarily, not being in some
particular way but simply being, would be thinghood.
But then primary is meant in more than one way, but all the same,
thinghood is primary in every sense, in articulation, in knowledge, and
in time. For none of the other ways of attributing being is separate,
but only this one; and in articulation this one is primary (for in the
articulation of anything, that of its thinghood must be included); and
we believe that we know each thing most of all when we know what it
1 This title for Book VII supplied by the translator.

2 See Bk. V, Ch. 7.
118 Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 1
1 028b is-a human being or fire-rather than of what sort or how much or
where it is, since we know even each of these things themselves only
when we know what an amount or a sort is. And in fact, the thing that
has been sought both anciently and now, and always, and is always a
source of impasses, "what is being?", is just this: what is thinghood?
(For it is this that some people say is one and others more than one,
and some say is finite and others infinite.) So too for us, most of all and
first of all and, one might almost say, solely, it is necessary to study
what this kind of being is.
Chapter 2 Now thinghood seems to belong most evidently to

1 028b 1 0 bodies (and therefore we say that animals and plants and their parts
are independent things, as well as natural bodies such as fire and
water and earth and each thing of that kind, and as many things as
are either parts of these or made out of them, out of either some or
all of them, such as the cosmos and the parts of it, the stars and the
moon and the sun) . But whether these alone are independent things
or there are also others, or just some of these are, or some in addition
to some other things, or none of these but something different, must
be examined. And it seems to some that the limits of bodies, such as
a surface and a line and a point and the unit, are independent things
more so than are a body or a solid. Further, while some believe that
there is no such thing apart from what is perceptible, others believe
that there are everlasting things that are more in number and that
1 028b 20 are more, just as Plato believed that the forms and the mathematical
things are two kinds of independent things, while the thinghood of
perceptible bodies is a third, and Speusippus believed in still more
kinds of thinghood originating from the one and from each source of
thinghood, one source for numbers and another for magnitudes, and
next one for soul, and in this way he extended the kinds of thinghood.
But some people say that the forms and the numbers have the same
nature, and that the other things follow upon them, lines and planes
all the way down to the thinghood of the cosmos and the perceptible
things.
Now about these things, what is said well and what not, and what
the independent things are, and whether there are any apart from the
1 028b 30 perceptible things or not, and in what way these are, and whether
there is any separate independent thing, and why and in what way, or
Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 3 1 19
none at all apart from perceptible things, must be examined by those

beginning to sketch out what thinghood is.
Chapter 3 Now thinghood is meant, if not in more ways, certainly

in four ways most of all; for the thinghood of each thing seems to be
what it keeps on being in order to be at all, but also seems to be the
universal, and the general class, and, fourth, what underlies these.
And what underlies the others is that to which they are attributed,
while it is itself not attributed any further to anything else; therefore
one ought to distinguish this sort first, since thinghood seems most of 1 029a
all to be the first underlying thing. And in a certain way the material is
said to be of this sort, but in another way the form is, and in a third that
which is made out of these. (And by the material, I mean, for instance,
bronze, by the form, the shape of its look, and by what is made out of
these, the statue.) So if the form is more primary than the material, and
is more, it will also, for the same reason, be more primary than what
is made of both.
So now, in a sketch, what thinghood is has been said, that it is what
is not in an underlying thing but is that in which everything else is; but
it is necessary not to say only this, since it is not sufficient, for this itself 1 029a 1 0
is unclear, and what's more, the material becomes thinghood. For if
thinghood is not this, what else it is eludes us, since, when everything
else is stripped away, it does not seem that anything is left; for some
of the other things are attributes of bodies, or things done by them,
or capacities of them, while length, breadth, and depth are certain
quantities but not independent things (for how much something is
is not thinghood), but it is rather the first thing in which these are
present that is an independent thing. But when length, breadth, and
depth are taken away, we see nothing left behind, unless it is what
is bounded by these, so that, to those who look at it in this way, the
material must seem to be the only independent thing. By material I 1 029a 20
mean that which, in its own right, is not said to be either something or
so much or anything else by which being is made definite. For there
is something to which each of these is attributed, and of which the
being is different from each of the things attributed (for everything
else is attributed to thinghood, and it is attributed to the material), so
that the last thing is in itself neither something nor so much, nor is it
anything else; and it is not even the negations of these, for these too
would belong to it as attributes.
1 20 Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 3
So for those who examine it from these starting points, thinghood

turns out to be material. But this is impossible, for also to be separate
and a this seem to belong to an independent thing most of all, on ac
count of which the form and what is made out of both would seem to
1 029a 3 0 be thinghood more than would the material. And surely the thinghood
that consists of both, I mean of the material and the form, should be
put aside, since it is derivative and obvious; and in a certain way the
material too is evident, but one must investigate about the third kind,
since this is the greatest stumbling block. And it is agreed that there
are some independent things among perceptible things, so one ought
1 029b 3 to look first into these. For it is convenient to pass over toward what is
most knowable. For learning happens in this way in all areas, by way
of what is less knowable by nature, toward what is more knowable.
And this is the task: just as, where actions are concerned, one's job is to
make what is completely good be good for each person out of the things
that are good for each one, so too it is to make what is knowable by
nature known to oneself out of the things that are more known to one.
But the things that are known and primary to each person are often
1 029b 1 0 scarcely knowable, and have little or nothing of being; nevertheless
one must try to come to know the things that are completely knowable
out of the things that are poorly known but known to oneself, passing
over, as was said, by means of these very things.3
1 029b 1 Chapter 4 But since at the start we distinguished in how many

ways we define thinghood, and of these a certain one seemed to be
what something keeps on being in order to be, one ought to examine
1 029b 1 3 that. And first let us say some things about it from the standpoint of
logic,4 because what it is for each thing to be is what is said of it in its
own right. For being you is not being cultivated, since it is not in virtue
3 The last three sentences are misplaced in the manuscripts, after the first sentence
of Ch. 4. They are undoubtedly genuine, and form one of the major structural
connections of the whole Metaphysics. They make it clear that the sort of being found
in perceptible things, while it must be first for us, is not first in the nature of things.
On this order of study, see also Physics Bk. I, Ch. 1 , and Topics 1 01 a 35-101 b 4.
4 The rest of Bk. VII, except for Ch. 7-9, is logical in character, an analysis starting
from the way we speak and think. For Aristotle, this is always secondary to examining
the way things are by nature. (See, for example, Physics 204 b 3-1 1 .) The last chapter
of Bk. VII forms a bridge from the logical to the natural by means of the notion of
cause.
of yourself that you are cultivated. Therefore, being you is what you
are in virtue of yourself, but it is not even all of this, for it is not what
is in virtue of itself in the way that white is in a surface, because being
white is not being a surface. But surely neither is the thing made out of
both, being-a-white-surface, what it is to be white, because white itself
is attached to it. Therefore that articulation in which something is not
itself present, when one is articulating it, is the statement of what it is 1 029b 20
for each thing to be; so if being a white surface is being a surface that
is smooth,5 being, for white and for smooth, is one and the same.
But since there are also compounds that result from the other
ways of attributing being (since there is something underlying each
of them, such as the of-what-sort, the how-much, the when, the
where, and the motion), one must consider whether there is for each
of these a statement of what it is for it to be, and whether what-it
is-for-it-to-be even belongs to them, for example to a person with a
pale complexion. Now let's suppose the name for a pale person is
"sheet." What is the being of a "sheet"? Now surely this is not even
among the things attributed to anything in virtue of itself. But "not in
virtue of itself" is meant in two ways, and of these one results from 1 029b 30
attaching something, but the other from not attaching something. For
the former way is stated by sticking the thing one is defining onto
something else, as if, when defining being-pale, one were to state the
articulation of a pale person; the latter way occurs because something
else is attached to the thing being defined, as if "sheet" meant a pale
person and one defined the "sheet'' as pale.6 The pale person is of 1 030a
course pale, but what it is for it to be is not what it is for pale to
be.
But is being-a-"sheet" any sort of what-it-is-for-something-to-be at
all, or not? For what it is for something to be is the very thing that
5 See On Sense Perception and Perceptible Things 442b 1 0-1 3 . Democritus, like Galileo
and Descartes in a later time, sought to reduce the proper objects of the senses to
mathematical attributes. Aristotle does not think white can be reduced to anything
else, but his point is that, even though white by its very nature must be in a surface,
being-in-a-surface is no part of the nature of whiteness, whatever that nature might
be.
6 The statement of what something is in virtue of itself can fail by including too much,
or by omitting something necessary. Aristotle is implicitly asking, in the two preceding
sentences, why a "sheet" can't be what it is in virtue of itself, so long as one states
that properly, and his answer is in the next paragraph.
1 22 Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 4
something is, and whenever one thing is attributed to another, the

compound is not the very thing that is a this, as in this instance a pale
person is not the very thing that is a this, if indeed thisness belongs
only to independent things. Therefore there is a what-it-is-for-it-to
be of all those things of which the articulation is a definition. And it
is not the case that there is a definition whenever a name means the
same thing as a statement (for then all statements in words would
be definitions, since there could be a name for any group of words
1 030a 1 0 whatever, and even the Iliad would be a definition), but only if the
statement articulates some primary thing, and things of this kind are
all those that are not articulated by attributing one thing to another.
Therefore there will be no what-it-is-for-it-to-be belonging to anything
that is not a species of a genus, but only to these (for the species seems
not to be meant as something a thing has a share in and is affected
by, nor as an incidental attribute); but there will still be a statement
for each of the other things as well, of what it means, if it has a name,
stating that this belongs to that, or a more accurate statement instead
of a simple one, but there will be no definition nor any what-it-is-for
it-to-be.
Or else, are the definition and the what-it-is-for-something-to-be
both alike meant in more than one way? For also what-something-is
in one sense indicates its thinghood and a this, but in another sense
1 030a 20 indicates any of the ways of attributing being, how much something
is, of what sort it is, and everything else of that kind. For just as the
"is" belongs to all of them, though not in the same way, but to one
of them primarily and to the rest derivatively, so too the what-it-is
belongs simply to the thinghood but in a certain respect to the others;
for we might also ask what an of-this-sort is, though not simply but
in the same way that, in the case of what is not, some people say
logically that what is not is, not that it is simply but that it is what is
not. It is the same way also with what is of-this-sort. Now one ought
to consider how one should speak about each thing, but surely not
more than about how the things are; so also now, since it is clear
what is meant, the what-it-is-for-something-to-be, in the same way
1 030a 30 as the what-something-is, will also belong primarily and simply to
thinghood, and secondarily to the other ways of attributing being,
not as a what-it-is-for-something-to�be simply; but as what it is for an
of-this-sort or a so-much to be.
For one has to say that these are beings either ambiguously or
Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 5 · 1 23
by adding and subtracting? in the same way that one can say the
unknown is something known, since the right thing to say is that they
are called beings neither ambiguously nor in just the same way, just
as what is medical is so called not by being something that is one and
the same but by pointing to something that is one and the same, and 1 030b
so not in an ambiguous way either. For a medical cadaver, a medical
action, and a medical instrument are meant neither ambiguously nor
as one thing, but as pointing to one thing.s But it makes no difference
in which of the two ways one wants to speak about these things. This
is clear: that a definition and a what-it-is-for-something-to-be belong
primarily and simply to independent things. It is not that they do not
belong to the other things in a way that resembles this, but only that
they do not belong to them primarily. For it is not necessary, if we
assume this, that there be a definition of whatever means the same
thing as a group of words, but only that there be one of what means
the same thing as a certain kind of group of words, and this is one
that belongs to something that is one, not by being continuous in the
way that the Iliad is, nor by being bundled together, but in just those 1 030b 1 0
ways that one is meant. Now one is meant in the same ways as being,
and being signifies in one way a this, in another a so-much, and in
another an of-this-sort. And for this reason there will be a statement
and a definition of a pale person, but in a different way than of pale,
or of an independent thing.
Chapter 5 But there is an impasse: if one denies that a statement

that adds things together is a definition, will there be a definition of
anything that is not simple but consists of things linked together? For it
is clear that it would have to be defined by way of addition. I mean, for
example, that there is a nose and there is being-squashed-in, and there
is also snubness that means something made out of these two, this one
in that one, and it is not incidental that the being-squashed-in or the
snubness is an attribute of the nose, but in its own right, nor is it in the 1 030b 20
way that paleness is in Callias, or in a human being, because Callias,
who is incidentally a human being, is pale, but in the way that maleness
7 That is, since a quantity (say) is a being only in a qualified sense (with an addition),
it is a being in less than the full sense (with a subtraction).
8 See the first paragraph of Bk. IV, Ch. 2.
i s i n an animal or equality i n an amount, and all those things that are

said to belong to something in virtue of themselves. And these are
those things in which there is present either the meaning or the name
of that of which each is an attribute, and which cannot be displayed
separately, as paleness can be displayed without a human being, but
femaleness cannot be displayed without an animal. Therefore, there is
either no what-it-is-for-them-to-be and definition of these things, or, if
there is, it is in a different way, just as we have said.
But there is also a different impasse about them. For if a snub nose
and a squashed-in nose are the same thing, then snub and squashed
1 030b 30 in will be the same thing; and if they are not, on account of the
impossibility of saying snubness without the thing of which it is an
attribute in its own right (since snubness is squashed-in-ness in a nose),
then it is either not possible to say snub nose, or else the same thing
will have been said twice, squashed-in nose nose (since the nose that
is snub would be a nose that is a squashed-in nose), for which reason
it is absurd that a what-it-is-for-it-to-be should belong to such things,
and if it did, it would be infinite, since in a snub nose there will always
1 03 l a be another nose present. 9
Accordingly, it is clear that definition belongs to thinghood alone.
For if it belonged also to the other ways of attributing being, it would
have to be by way of adding things together, for instance if there were
a definition of the odd, since it is not without a number, nor is there a
female without an animal (and by "by way of addition" I mean those
statements in which one turns out to have said the same thing twice,
as in these instances). But if this is true, there will be no definitions
of linked thingslO either, such as of odd number, though this goes
unnoticed because our statements are not articulated in a precise way.
9 It takes some contortion to see the meaning of snub nose as infinite, but it may
be worth the effort. If one simply substitutes "squashed-in nose" for the word snub,
then the phrase contains "nose" twice, but only twice; but if one focuses only on the
fact that snub contains an implicit reference to a nose, then snub nose becomes snub
(nose) nose, which in turn becomes snub (nose (nose)] nose, and so on. From this
perspective the phrase snub nose is infinite and therefore unbounded, and so cannot
have a definition, which is a boundary.
1 0 Chapters 4 and 5 may be said to deal with two kinds of "linked" things, as seen
in the examples of a pale human being and a female human being. The ti en einai is
what something keeps on being, in order to be at all, and so cannot include paleness,
which a human being might happen to lose, or femaleness, which is not necessary
in order for someone to be a human being. A human being must have some sort of
Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 6 1 25
But if there are definitions of these, it is either in another way or else,

just as was said, one must say that the definition and what it is for
something to be are present in more than one way. Therefore in one 1 03 1 a 1 0
sense there will not be a definition of anything, nor a what-it-is-for
something-to-be present in anything, except of and in independent
things, but in another sense there will be. That, then, the definition is a
statement of what it is for something to be, and that the what-it-is-for
something-to-be belongs to independent things alone, or else to them
most of all, primarily, and simply, is clear.
Chapter 6 But one must investigate whether each thing is the same
as, or different from, what it keeps on being in order for it to be. For
this will contribute in a certain way toward the investigation about
thinghood, since it is the case both that each thing seems to be nothing
other than its own thinghood, and that what it is for it to be is said
to be the thinghood of each thing. Now in the case of things meant
as incidental, they would seem to be different, as a pale person is 1 03 l a 20
different from being-a-pale-person. (For if they were the same, then
also being-a-human-being and being-a-pale-human-being would be
the same; for a pale human being is just the same thing as a human
being, as people say, so that being-a-pale-human-being and being
a-human-being would also be the same. Or does it not necessarily
follow that they are the same in those instances that involve incidental
attributes, since the extreme terms are not equated with the middle
term in the same way?ll But then perhaps this might seem to follow,
that a pair of incidental extreme terms would become the same, such
as being-pale and being-cultivated, but this doesn't seem to be so.12)
But in the case of things attributed in virtue of themselves-such
as if, for instance, there are some independent things than which no
generative capacity, but either sort, and even a defective instance of it, would still be
sufficient.
1 1 Being-a-pale-human is taken as identical with a pale human by assumption, while
a pale human is taken as just the same as a human by loose ordinary speech, which
doesn't discriminate between incidental and necessary attributes.
1 2 If there was no syllogism in the previous case because of a lack of parallelism of
the premises, would it help to make them both predications of incidental attributes?
Obviously not, so one can now conclude than an incidental compound such· as pale
human-being is not part of what it is to be anything.
1 0 3 1 a 30 other independent things or natures are more primary, of the sort that
some people say the forms are--is it necessary that they be the same
as what it is for them to be? For if the good itself and being-good
were different, or animal-itself and being-an-animal, or being itself
1 031 b and being-being, then there would be other independent things and
natures and forms besides the ones that are spoken of, and those other
kinds of thinghood would be more primary, if what it is for something
to be is its thinghood. And if they are detached from one another,
there would be no knowledge of the forms, and what it is for things
to be would not have being. (By "being detached," I mean if being
good does not belong to the good itself, and the good that is does not
belong to being-good.) For there is knowledge of anything only when
we recognize what it is for it to be, and the same thing that holds true
with the good holds also with the other things, so that if being-good
is not good, then being-being does not have being and being-one is
not a unity; and likewise, either for all things or for none, the what
it-is-to-be has being, so that if being-being does not have being, then
1 031 b 1 0 neither do any of the others. What's more, that to which being-good
does not belong is not good. Therefore the good and being-good must
be one thing, and so too the beautiful and being-beautiful, and all
those things that are not attributed in virtue of anything else but in
virtue of themselves and primarily. For this would be sufficient if it
were granted, even if there were no forms, and perhaps even more so
if there are forms. (And at the same time it is also clear that, if there
are forms of the sort that some people say there are, thinghood will
not be an underlying thing; for these must be the thinghood of things,
but not as underlying things, since the other things will be by means
of participating in them.l3)
So by these arguments, each thing itself and what it is for it to be are
1 031 b 20 one and the same, in a way that is not incidental, and this follows also
because knowing each of them is just this: to know what it is for it to be.
1 3 It was concluded at 1 029a 26-30 that thinghood must refer to some sort of
underlying thing, but also to something that is separate and a this, and so must be the
form (or the composite) rather than the material. But if the form is only participated
in, or shared in, it cannot properly be said to underlie the particulars. This is not a
rejection of the idea of forms, but a fine tuning of one. Aristotle will argue that the
form must be at work upon the material in a way that makes the particular thing what
it is (Bk. VII, Ch. 1 7, and all of Bks. VIII and IX); the form therefore underlies the thing
in an active, causal way, and is not passively participated in.
Therefore, directly from the setting out of the question, it is necessary

that both of them be some one thing. (But of what is attributed as
incidental, such as cultivated or pale, it is not true to say that it and
what it is for it to be are the same thing, because of its double meaning,
since both that to which it is attributed, and the attribute, are pale, so
that in one sense it and what it is for it to be are the same thing, but
in another sense they are not, for being pale is not the same as being
human, or even as being a pale human, but it is the same as being a
certain attribute.) The absurdity [of distinguishing the form from what
it is for something to be] would be evident if one were to put a name
on each kind of thing there is for something to be, for then there would
be another one besides that one; for example, what it is to be a horse 1 03 1 b 30
would be different from what it is to be what it is to be a horse. So
even in the first place, what prevents some things from immediately
being what it is for them to be, especially since thinghood is what it
is for something to be? But in fact, not only are they one thing, but
even the very statement of them is the same, as is clear from what has 1 032a
been said; for it is in no incidental way that one and being-one are one.
What's more, if they were different, they would be part of an infinite
succession; for what it is for one to be would be one thing, and the one
would be another, so that there would be the same argument in the
case of each of these.
So it is clear that in the case of primary things, attributed in virtue
of themselves, the being of each of them and each of them itself are
one thing; as for the sophistical refutations directed at this thesis, it is
obvious that they are resolved by the same resolution that applies to
the question whether Socrates and being-Socrates are the same, since
there is no difference either in the grounds on which one might raise
the question, or in those on which one would succeed in resolving it.l4
In what way, then, what it is for something to be is the same as each
thing, and in what way it is not, have been said. 1 032a 1 0
1 4 Some commentators take this to mean that, just as Socrates and his soul are
identical, so too are the form and what it is for it to be; others take it to mean that,
since what it is to be Socrates is identical with humanness in general, and not with
him in particular, what it is to be Socrates is obviously different from Socrates, but on
grounds that lead to an opposite conclusion in the case of the forms. It is perhaps best
to understand Aristotle as saying that the application of the question to composite
particulars needs more thorough examination, which Ch. 7-9 provide.
Chapter 7 Of the things that come into being, some come about
by nature, some by art, and some as a result of chance, but everything
that comes into being becomes something, from something, and by
the action of something; by what it becomes, I mean something in
accordance with any of the ways of attributing being, for it comes to be
either a this, or how-much, or of-what-sort, or where it is. And natural
comings-into-being are those of which the origin is from nature, and
that out of which they come to be is what we call material, that by the
action of which is any of the natural beings, and what they become is
either a human being or a plant or anything else of that sort, which
1 032a 20 in fact we most of all say are independent things-and all things that
come into being by either nature or art have material, for each of them
is capable of being and of not being, and this potentiality is the material
in each-and in general, that out of which they come is a nature and
that toward which they come to be is a nature (for the thing that comes
into being, such as a plant or an animal, has a nature), and that by the
action of which they come to be is the nature that is meant in the sense
of the form and is the same in form as what comes into being (though
it is in another, since a human being begets a human being) .
It is in this way, then, that things come into being that come to
be by nature, but the other things that come into being are called
products. And all products result from art, or from an aptitude, or
from thinking. But some of these things come about also just on their
1 032a 30 own and by chance, in much the same way as happens among things
that come into being as a result of nature; for there too, some of the
same things that come into being from seeds are also produced without
1 032b seeds.lS These must be looked into later, but it is from art that all those
things come into being whose forms are in the soul (and by form I
mean what it is for them to be, and their primary thinghood). For in
a certain way, the same form belongs even to contrary things, since
the thinghood of something lacking is the thinghood opposite to it,
1 5 To all naked-eye appearances, a number of species produce offspring "sponta

neously," contrary to the usual course of nature. These include mistletoe, among
plants, and a variety of shellfish, among plantlike animals, as well as worms that arise
in mud or decaying flesh. Something in the environment appears to play the role
of the female generative fluid, and some part of the living thing substitutes for the
semen. See Generation of Animals 762a 37-763b 1 6. The discovery, by means of the
microscope, of the egg and sperm cells, brings these anomalies into Aristotle's account
of the normal course of nature.
as health is of disease, for it is by the absence of health that there is

disease, while health is a pattern and a knowledge in the soul. And
something healthy comes into being when someone thinks in this way:
since health is such-and-such, it is necessary, if something is to be
healthy, that such-and-such be present, for instance uniformity, and if
this is to be present there must be warmth,16 and one goes on thinking
continually in this way until one traces the series back to that which, at
last, one is oneself capable of making. From that point on, the motion 1 032b 1 0
is then called production, namely the motion toward being-healthy. So
it turns out that in a certain way health comes into being from health,
and a house from a house, the one that has material coming from the
one that is without material. For the medical art is the form of health,
and the house-building art is the form of a house,17 and by thinghood
without material, I mean what it is for something to be.
So of the process of coming-into-being and the motion involved
in it, one part should be called thinking and the other producing, the
thinking starting from the source and from the form, and the producing
starting from the completion of the thinking. And it is in a similar way
too that each of the other steps in-between comes about. I mean, for
example, that if someone is going to be healthy, he needs to be brought
into a uniform condition. What, then, is it to be made uniform? Such
and-such, and this will be the case if he is made warm. And what is 1 032b 20
that? Such-and-such, which is present potentially, and this is already
in one's power. So that which produces, and from which the motion of
healing takes its origin, if it comes about by art, is the form in the soul,
but if it comes about by chance, it is from whatever step it was that was
the start of the producing for the one who produced it by art, as, in the
doctoring in particular, the start was perhaps from the warming (and
one produces this by rubbing) . Accordingly, the warmth in the body
is either part of health, or else something of a similar kind follows it,
which is a part of health, or it follows by a number of steps; and the
1 6 Aristotle compares the internal temperature of an animal to the sun's heat that
ripens fruit and the cooking that makes food nourishing. See Meteorology, Bk. IV, Ch.
2-3, and Generation of Animals 743a 1 8-743b 1 8.
1 7 We speak of the artist or artisan as a creator, but Aristotle understands the form
to be at work upon the soul of the artist, who can then assist its transmission into
material. In the famous example of the four causes of a statue, the sculptor is not even
its "efficient" cause, except incidentally; the moving cause of a statue is the sculptor's
art, a being-at-work of forms. (See above, 1 0 1 3 b 4-9.)
last of these is what produces the part, and is in this way itself a part,
1 032b 30 of health, or in the case of a house it is, say, stones, and so too in other
things.lB Therefore, just as is always said, coming into being would be
impossible if there were nothing present beforehand.19
So it is clear that some part of the productwill necessarily be present
from the start, since the material is part of it (for this is a constituent
1 033a in it and comes to be something). But this is not one of the things
included in the articulation of a thing, is it? But we do state in both
ways what bronze circles are, stating both that the material is bronze
and that the form is a certain sort of shape, and this is the class into
which it is primarily placed. So the bronze circle has its material in
its articulation. But the material out of which some things come when
they are generated is attributed to them not by that name but by one
derived from it, as if a statue were not called stone but stony; but the
human being grown healthy is not called by the name of that out of
which he becomes healthy, and the reason is that he becomes healthy
out of a deprivation and something underlying it, which is what we
1 033a 1 0 call material (for instance, it's both a human being and a sick person
that becomes healthy), though he is more so said to become healthy out
of its lack, namely from being sick, than out of being human, and hence
the healthy person is not called sick but human, and the human being
is called healthy. But those things of which the lack is not apparent
and has no name, such as the lack of any particular shape in bronze,
or the lack of a house in bricks and lumber, seem to have things come
into being out of them in the same way that the person in the earlier
example became something out of being sick. And for this reason, just
as there that out of which he comes to be is not attributed to him, here
too the statue is not called wood but by the derivative wooden instead
of wood, or brazen instead of brass, or stony instead of stone, and a
1 033a 20 house is not said to be bricks but of bricks, since if one were to look
very carefully, one would not say simply, either that the statue comes
1 8 No chance heap of stones spontaneously turns into a shelter, but if it did, the
process would start just where the housebuilder stops planning and starts producing.
On the other hand, any friction that warms the body might happen to produce health;
the rubbing is already part of health since it starts a sequence of events in which health
is brought about. There is no implication that the two cases are alike.
1 9 "Nothing comes from nothing" is true, but can easily lead to false conclusions. See
Physics, Bk. I, Ch. 8.
into being out of wood, or the house out of bricks, since they have to
change and not remain what they are, in order for something to come
into being. This is why we speak in this way.20
Chapter 8 Now since what comes into being comes about by the
action of something (and by this I mean that from which the source of
its generation comes), and out of something (and let this be not the lack
but the material, since we have already distinguished the way in which
we mean this), and becomes something (and this is either a sphere or a
circle or whatever it might be in other cases), just as one does not make
the underlying thing, the bronze, so too one does not make the sphere,
except in the incidental sense that the bronze sphere is a sphere, and 1 033a 30
one makes that. For to make a this is to make a this out of the whole of
what underlies it. (I mean that making the bronze round is not making
the "round" or the sphere but something different, such that this form
is in something else; for if one made the form, one would make it out
of some other thing, since that was assumed, in some such way as one 1 033b
makes a bronze sphere, in the sense that out of this, which is bronze,
one makes this, which is a sphere.) So if one were also to make the
underlying thing itself, it is clear that one would make it in the same
way, and the comings-into-being would march off to infinity.
Therefore it is clear that the form, or whatever one ought to call
the shapeliness that is worked into the perceptible thing, does not
come into being, and that coming-into-being does not even pertain to
it, or to what it is for something to be (for this is what comes to be
in something else, by art or by nature, or by some capacity). But one
makes the bronze be a sphere, for one makes it out of bronze and out
of the sphere, since one brings the form into this material, and it is 1 033b 1 0
this that is a bronze sphere. But of being-a-sphere, if there were to be
a coming-into-being of it at all, it would be something made out of
something. For the thing that comes into being will always have to be
divisible, and be not only this but also that-I mean, not only form
but also material. So if a sphere is a figure that is equidistant from the
20 Aristotle's point is not to explain these verbal distinctions, but to explain them
away. The material of anything that comes into being is part of its very articulation, of
what might seem to be its formal aspect, even when we fail to notice it (by focusing
on the lack to the exclusion of the underlying thing that had the lack), have no name
for it, or alter its name to reflect its own altered condition.
center, one part of this would be that in which one puts something, and
the other that which one puts in it, and the whole would be a product
that has come into being, analogous to the bronze sphere. So it is clear
from what has been said that what is spoken of as form or thinghood
does not come into being, but the composite whole that is named in
consequence of this does come into being; and it is clear that there is
material present in everything that comes into being, so that it is not
only this but also that.
1 033b 20 But is there, then, some sphere apart from the ones around us, or a
house apart from bricks? Or would there not even be any coming-into
being if the form were a this in that way, but does it instead indicate
a certain kind, without being this and determinate? So it is rather the
case that one makes or begets a certain kind of thing out of some this,
and when it has been generated it is this-thing-of-this-kind. And the
whole this, Callias or Socrates, is just like the sphere that is this bronze
one here, while human being or animal is just like bronze sphere in
general. Therefore it is clear that the causal responsibility attributed to
the forms, in the sense that some people are in the habit of speaking of
the forms, as if they are certain things apart from the particulars, is of
no use, at least in relation to coming into being and independent things;
nor would they be, for the sake of these things at least, independent
1 033b 30 things in their own right.21 With some things, in fact, it is even obvious
that what does the generating is something of the same sort as the
thing generated, though it is not the same one nor are they one in
number, but they are one in kind, namely among natural things
for it is a human being that begets a human being-unless something
is generated contrary to nature, such as a horse that's half donkey.
(And even these cases are of a similar sort, for the narrowest class that
1 034a would be common to a horse and a donkey does not have a name, but
it would presumably be of both kinds, as the half-donkey is.22) So it is
clear that there is no need to go to the trouble of providing a form as a
pattern (since they would have looked for it most of all among things
21 Note that this heavily qualified claim rejects only a certain way of arguing for
separate forms. Aristotle has already said that the form is a this and separate (1 029a
27-30 and 1 01 7b 25-28), and will make clear the sense in which he means this as
the inquiry unfolds.
22 Greek had no separate word for the hybrid, which we call a mule. It was well known
that all mules are sterile. (See Generation of Animals, Bk. II, Ch. 8.)
generated by nature, for these most of all are independent things), but
the begetter is sufficient to produce the things that come into being, and
is responsible for the form's being in the material. But the whole, this
particular form in these particular bones and flesh, is already Callias or
Socrates; and they are different on account of their material (since it is
different), but they are the same in form (for the form is indivisible) .23
Chapter 9 One might be at a loss to explain why some things come

about both by art and just on their own, such as health, while others, 1 034a 1 0
for instance a house, do not. But the reason is that in some things,
the material that starts off the coming-into-being in the producing or
becoming-something of what results from art, in which some part of
the thing produced is present, is of such a sort as to be set in motion
either by itself or not, and some of this is able to be moved by itself
in a particular way, but some is not capable of it; for many things
are capable of being moved by themselves, but not in some particular
way, say dancing. So those things whose material is of this sort, such
as rocks, are not capable of being moved in a particular way except
by something else, but in another particular way, yes they are. This is
why some things would not be without someone who has an art, while
others would, since the latter will be set in motion by those things that
do not have the art, since they can be moved by other things that do 1 034a 20
not have art or by a part of themselves.
And it is clear also from what has been said that in a certain way
everything comes into being from something that shares its name, just
as the things do that are by nature (for instance a house comes from a
house, insofar as it comes about by the action of an intelligence, since
its form is the art by which it is built), or from a part of such a thing,
or from something having some such part, unless it comes into being
incidentally; for the primary thing responsible for making something
is, in virtue of itself, a part of what is made. For it is the heat in a motion
that produces the heat in the body, and this is either health, or part of
it, or some part of health follows along with it, or health itself does;
hence it is also said to produce health, because it produces that which 1 034a 30
23 To the question at the end of Ch. 6, this result would seem to imply the answer:
no, Socrates is not the same as what it is for him to be, since then he and Callias would
be the same. But perhaps, primarily and in virtue of themselves, they are the same.
The topic comes up ag ain in Ch. 1 1 .
health follows along with and is an attribute of.

Therefore, just as in demonstrative reasoning, thinghood is the
source of everything; for syllogisms come from what something is,24
while here generations do. And the things composed by nature are in a
condition similar to those produced by art. For the seed produces just
1 034b as works of art are produced, since it contains the form in potency; and
that from which the seed comes is, in some respect, a thing of the same
name (unless there is a defect, which is why a half-donkey does not
come from a half-donkey), for one needn't look for all things to be just
the same as a human being from a human being, since it is also true
that a woman comes from a man. And those things that come about
on their own in nature come into being just as in the case of art, being
those of which the material is capable of being moved by itself in the
same motion which the seed sets moving; all those whose material is
not of that sort are incapable of coming into being in any other way
than from things of the same kind.
And it is not only about thinghood that the argument shows
that the form does not come into being, but in the same way, the
argument concerns in common all the primary things, such as how
1 034b 1 0 much something is, and of what sort, and the other ways of attributing
being. For just as the bronze sphere comes into being, but not sphere or
bronze, and also in the case of the bronze if it does come into being (for
always it is necessary that material and form be present beforehand),
so too in the case of what something is, and of what sort it is, and how
much, and similarly with the rest of the ways of attributing being, for
it is not the this-sort that comes into being, but a wooden thing of this
sort, and not the so-much but so much wood or an animal that is so
big. But what is to be understood from these considerations as peculiar
to an independent thing is that a different independent thing that is
fully at work, and that makes it, must be present beforehand, such as
an animal if it is an animal that comes into being; but with what is of
this sort or so much, this is not necessary, but only something that is
potentially each.
1 034b 2 0 Chapter 10 Now since the definition is a statement and every
24 This is the ultimate presupposition of any reasoning. See Posterior Analytics 90b
31 -33.
statement has parts, and as the statement is related to the thing defined,
so too is the part of the statement related to the part of the thing, the
difficulty immediately arises, whether it is or is not necessary for an
articulation of the parts to be present in that of the whole. For with some
things they obviously are included, but with others they obviously
are not. For the articulation of the circle does not contain that of its
segments, but the articulation of a syllable does contain a statement
of its letters, even though the circle is divided into its segments just as
the syllable is divided into its letters. And further, if the parts precede
the whole, while the acute angle is part of the right angle and a finger 1 034b 30
is part of an animal, the acute angle would take precedence over the
right angle, and the finger over the human being. But it is those others
that seem to be more primary; for in an account of them, the parts are
explained by means of the wholes, and in regard to which of them can
have being without the others, the wholes are more primary.
Or else a part is meant in more than one way, one of which is
in the sense of what measures how much something is-but let this
sense be left aside; but those things of which thinghood consists in
the sense of parts are what one needs to examine. So if material is one 1 035a
thing, and form another, and another is what is made of these, and an
independent thing is both the material and the form as well as what
is made of them, there is both a sense in which the material is said to
be part of something, and a sense in which it is not, but the parts are
those things of which the articulation of its form consists. For instance,
flesh is not part of being-squashed-in (since this is the material upon
which it comes to be), but it is a part of snubness; and of the composite
whole of a statue, bronze is a part, but not of the statue described as
a form (for what one must state is the form, and each thing must be
described insofar as it has form, while what is simply material as such
should never be stated25). This is why the articulation of the circle does
not contain that of its. segments, while that of a syllable does contain a 1 035a 1 0
statement of its letters; for the letters are not material but are parts of
the form, while the segments are parts in the sense of material upon
which the circle is begotten, yet even so they are nearer to the form
than is the bronze, in those cases in which roundness becomes present
25 The material is always to some extent incidental to what a thing is. Aristotle says
in Physics Bk. II, Ch. 9, that a saw has to be made of iron, but at 1 044a 27-29 below
he says merely that some materials, such as wood or wool, would not make it a saw.
1 36 Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 10
in bronze. And there is a sense in which not even all the letters will be
included in the articulation of a syllable, such as the particular ones
in a wax tablet, or the ones uttered in the air, since these also already
count as part of the syllable in the sense of perceptible material. For
even if a line when it is divided passes away into its halves, or a human
being into bones, connective tissue, and flesh, it does not follow that
1 035a 20 for this reason they are made out of those things in such a way that
they are parts of the thinghood of them, but only that they are made
out of them as material, and as parts of the composite whole; but this
does not go so far as to make them parts of the form or of that which
the articulation is about, and for just that reason they are not in the
articulations.
So for some things, the articulation of such parts will be included,
but for others it ought not to be included, when the articulation is
not of the thing as taking in its material with it; for that is why some
things are made out of these parts as sources into which they pass
away, while some are not. So as many things as take in the form and
material together, such as snubness or a bronze circle, do pass away
into them and the material is part of them, but as many as do not take
in the material with them, but are without material, the articulations
1 035a 30 of which refer to the form alone, do not pass away, either not at all or
at least not in that way; and so of the former things, these materials are
sources and parts, but are neither parts nor sources of the form. And
it is for this reason that a clay statue passes away into clay, a sphere
into bronze, and Callias into flesh and bones, and even a circle into
its segments, since there is a kind of circle which takes in its material
1 035b along with it; for circle is meant ambiguously, both simply and as a
particular one, since there is no special word for the particular ones.
So even now, the truth of the matter has been stated, but still let us
speak still more clearly, taking it up again. For those parts that belong to
the articulation of a thing, and into which that articulation is divided,
are more primary than it is, either all of them or some of them; and
the articulation of the right angle does not have the articulation of the
acute angle as a division of it, but that of the acute does have that of
the right as a division, for someone defining the acute angle makes
use of the right angle, since the acute is that which is less than a right
1 035b 1 0 angle. And the circle and semicircle are also similarly related, since
the semicircle is defined by means of the circle, and also the finger by
means of the whole, since a finger is a certain sort of part of a human
Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 10 1 37
being. And so all those things that are parts in the sense of material,
and into which something divides up as into material, are derivative
from the whole; but either all or some of those that are parts in the sense
of belonging to the articulation and to the thinghood that is disclosed
in the articulation, are more primary than it.
And since the soul of an anll:nal (for this is the thinghood of an
ensouled thing) is its thinghood as disclosed in speech, and its form,
and what it is for a certain sort of body to be (at any rate, each part of it,
if it is defined well, will not be defined without its activity, which will
not belong to it without perception26), either all or some of the parts
of the soul are more primary than the whole animal as a composite,
and similarly with each particular kind, but the body and its parts are 1 035b 20
derivative from the thinghood in this sense, and it is not the thinghood
but the composite whole that divides up into these as into material.
Now in a sense these are more primary than the composite, but in
a sense they are not (for the parts of the body are not capable even
of being when they are separated, for something is not the finger of
an animal when it is in any condition at all, but that of a corpse is a
finger in only an ambiguous sense), and some of them are of equal
primacy with the whole, those that are governing and in which the
articulation and thinghood primarily are, whether this is (say) the
heart or the brain, for it makes no difference which part is of that sort.
But a human being or horse in general, and the things that are in this
way after the manner of particulars, but universally; are not thinghood
but a certain kind of composite of such-and-such an articulation with
such-and-such material, understood universally, while the particular, 1 035b 30
composed of ultimate material, is already Socrates, and similarly in
other cases.
So a part belongs either to the form (and by form I mean what it is
for something to be) or to the composite of material and form, or to
the material itself. But the parts of a thing's articulation belong only
to the form, and the articulation is of the universal; for being a circle 1 036a
and a circle, or being a soul and the soul, are the same thing. But of the
composite there is already no definition, for instance of this circle here,
26 The capacity that distinguishes animals from plants is perception, which in some
way permeates everything an animal does. An animal is not a plant plus sense organs,
but a genuine whole, and perception is not one function among many but a governing
one.
or of any of the particular ones, either perceptible or intelligible-by

intelligible ones I mean such ones as belong to mathematics, and by
perceptible ones, such ones as are bronze or wooden-but we know
them directly by the contemplative intellect or by sense perception, and
once these fall away from an active exercise, it is not clear whether they
have being or not, but they are always described and known by means
of a universal articulation.27 But the material is not known in its own
1 036a 1 0 right. And one sort of material is perceptible, the other intelligible, the
perceptible, for example, bronze or wood, or any movable material,
while the intelligible is that which is present in perceptible things,
taken not as perceptible, as for example mathematical things are.
So how it is with whole and part, and with preceding and following,
has been said; and it is necessary to approach the question, whenever
someone asks whether a right angle or a circle or an animal is more
primary than the parts into which it is divided and out of which it
is made, by saying that it is not simply one or the other. For if the
soul is the animal or ensouled thing, or each of them is its own soul,
and a circle is being-a-circle, and a right angle is being-a-right-angle or
the thinghood of the right angle, then any of them must be said to be
1 036a 20 derivative from something, such as from the things in its articulation,
and it is also derivative from its parts if the question is asked about a
particular right angle (for this is true both of the one with material, the
bronze right angle, and of the one that is in particular lines), but the one
without material is derivative from the things in its articulation, but
more primary than the parts in each particular, but it is not something
that one can state simply. And if the soul is a different thing and is not
the animal, in that sense too one must say that some things are more
primary than it and that some are not, as has been said.
Chapter 11 One might reasonably be confused about what sort of

things are parts of the form, and what sort are parts not of that but
of the all-inclusive composite. And yet so long as this is not clear, it
is not possible to define any particular thing, since the definition is of
the universal and the form; so if it is not clear what sort of parts are
1 036a 3 0 present in the manner of material and what sort not, neither will the
2 7 This is a very important passage. It says that the universal is a reconstruction

in speech of the form, while the form itself is present directly to the perceiving or
contemplating soul.
articulation of the thing be evident. Now it seems clear for all those
things that are obviously brought into being in materials different in
form,28 such as a circle in bronze or stone or wood, that the bronze or
the wood does not in any way belong to the thinghood of the circle,
because of its being separated from them; but nothing prevents those
things that are not seen to be separated from being similar to the others, 1 036b
just as if all the circles one had seen were bronze, since nonetheless,
the bronze would in no way belong to the form, though it would be
difficult to subtract it in one's thinking. For example, the form of a
human being always appears in flesh and bones and parts of that sort:
are they then also parts of the form and of its articulation? Or are they
not, but just material, though because humans are not brought into
being in other materials we are unable to separate them?
But since this seems to be possible, while it is not clear when it is the
case, some people are already at an impasse even about the circle and
the triangle on the grounds that it doesn't seem right to define them
by means of lines and continuous magnitude, but rather to speak of 1 036b 1 0
all these too as if they were similar to the flesh and bones of a human
being and the bronze and wood of a statue; and these people trace all
things back to numbers, and say that the articulation of a line is that of
the number two. And among those who speak about forms, some say
the number two is the line itself, others that it is the form of the line,
for with some things they say that the form and that of which it is the
form are the same (such as the number two and the form of twoness),
but that this does not extend as far as to the line. 29 So it turns out that
there is one form of many things of which the form seems different
(the very thing that also turns out to be so for the Pythagoreans), and
also that it is possible to make out of everything one thing that is the
form itself, and make the others not be forms; and yet in this way all 1 036b 20
things would be one.
28 One might translate eidos here as "kind" or "species," but Aristotle is being very
precise. As he says above at 1 036a 8-9, material as such is unknowable; we know it
only by its form.
29 The original identification of the line with the number two is Pythagorean; two
points determine a line, which stretches in two directions, etc. The distinction about
the forms relates to an understanding that even among the forms there must be
something that plays the role of material, to make the line different from two itself.
That, then, the things pertaining to definitions hold a certain im

passe, and why they do, have been said; and that is why tracing
everything back in this way, and taking away the material, is overly
fastidious, for presumably some things are such-and-such in such-and
such, or such-and-such in such-and-such a condition. And the analogy
that Socrates the younger used to make in regard to an animal is not a
good one, for it leads away from the truth and makes one assume that
it is possible for there to be a human being without parts, just as there
can be a circle without bronze. But the animal is not like the circle,
since it is something perceptible, and it cannot be defined leaving out
1 036b 30 motion, nor for that reason without parts that are disposed in a certain
way. For it is not a hand of any sort that is part of a human being, but
one capable of accomplishing its work, and therefore being ensouled;
and what is not ensouled is no part of it.
But then in the case of mathematical things, why aren't the articu
lations of the parts included in those of the wholes, such as that of the
semicircles in that of the circle? For these are not perceptible things.
Or does it make no difference? For there will be material even of some
1 0 3 7a things that are not perceptible, since in everything that is not what it is
for something to be, nor a form itself just as itself, but a this, there is a
certain material. So these parts will not belong to the circle understood
universally, but will belong to the particular circles, just as was said
before; for there is not only perceptible but also intelligible material.
And it is clear too that the soul is the primary independent thing,
while the body is material, and the human being or animal in gen
eral is what is made of both, understood universally; and if it is
also true that the soul of Socrates is Socrates, then names such as
Socrates or Coriscus have two meanings (for some people mean by
them a soul, but others the composite), but if Socrates is simply this
1 037a 1 0 soul plus this body, then the particular is just like the universal. But
whether there is some other material besides that which belongs to
independent things of this kind, and whether one needs to look for
some other kind of independent thing such as numbers or anything
of that sort, one must consider later. For it is for the sake of this
that we are also trying to mark out the boundaries of those inde
pendent things that are perceptible, since in a certain way the study
of perceptible beings is the work of the study of nature, that is, of
second philosophy; for the one who studies nature must know not
only about the material but also about what is disclosed in speech,
and even more so. And in the case of definitions, one must consider
later in what way the things in an articulation are parts, and what
makes an articulation that is a definition be one. (For it is clear that
the thing defined is one, but by means of what is it one, since it has 1 037a 20
parts?)30
What, then, the what-it-keeps-on-being-in-order-to-be-at-all of
something is, and in what way it is what a thing itself is in virtue
of itself, have been stated in a general way that applies to every
thing, as has the reason why the articulation of what it is for some
things to be has in it the parts of the thing defined while that of other
things does not, and that the parts in the sense of material are not
included in the articulation of the thinghood of a thing-for they are
not parts of that kind of thinghood, but only of the composite whole,
and of this in a certain way there is and there isn't an articulation;
for there is none with the material (since this is indeterminate), but
there is one in virtue of the primary thinghood of the composite, as
for instance the articulation of the soul of a human being. For the
thinghood of a composite is the form that is in it, and the whole that
is made out of that and the material is called an independent thing 1 037a 30
(such an indwelling form is squashed-in-ness, for a snub nose, or
snubness, is made out of that and a nose)-though in the composite
independent thing, such as a snub nose or Callias, the material is also
included. And it has been said that each thing and what it is for it 1 037b
to be are in some cases the same, as with the primary independent
things (and by primary I mean what is not attributed to anything
else so as to be in another thing that underlies it as material), but as
many things as are material or as take in material along with them,
are not the same as what it is for them to be, nor is anything that
is one in an incidental way, such as Socrates and being cultivated,
3 0 The question how the parts make one whole is resolved in Bk. VIII. That resolution
also implies that Socrates is not a soul plus a body, but a unity of the two in a way that
is attributable to the soul. So the best answer to the question whether So�rates is the
same as what it is for Socrates to be, seems to be yes, though Aristotle leaves it with
a yes-and-no at the end of this chapter. The question whether there are independent
things besides the perceptible ones is resolved in Bk. XII. That is the culmination of
first philosophy, to which the whole analysis of the being of perceptible things in Bks.
VII-IX is subordinate. What is first for us is not first in itself.
1 42 Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 1 1
since they are only incidentally the same as what it is for them to
be.31
Chapter 12 Let us now speak first about definition, to the extent

that it is not spoken about in the writings on the analytic art,32 for
1 037b 1 0 the impasse that is stated in those discussions will contribute to the
discussions about thinghood. The impasse I mean is this: why in the
world oneness belongs to the articulation that we call a definition,
such as the definition of a human being as a two-footed animal, for
let that be its articulation.33 Why is this one thing and not many, an
animal and two footed? For in the case of human being and pale,
they are many whenever the latter is not present in the former, but
one when it is present and the underlying thing, the human being, is
affected in a certain way (for then they become one thing and are a
pale human being); here, though, one of them does not have any part
in the other, since the general class does not seem to have a share in its
1 037b 20 specific differences (for it would have a share in contrary things at the
same time, since those differences by which the genus is differentiated
are contraries). And even if it does share in them, the same argument
returns, so long as its specific differences are many, such as footed, two
footed, featherless. For why are these one and not many? For it is not
because they are all present in something, since in that way there will
be a oneness of everything in it. But what is necessary is that there be a
oneness of as many things as are in its definition, for the definition is a
certain kind of articulation that is one and belongs to an independent
thing, so that it has to be an articulation that belongs to something that
is one; for an independent thing means something that is one and a
this, as we assert.
3 1 Two inapplicable passages have crept into the manuscript texts of this paragraph.
One that gives curvature as an example of a primary being (presumably because it is
more general than snubness and doesn't refer to material, though it is the human soul
that is the primary being to which snub noses are incidental) is rejected by jaeger in
the most recent Oxford text The other, that inserts an irrelevant reminder that snub
nose has nose in it twice, is rejected by Ross in his earlier Oxford text. Neither passage
belongs here.
3 2 This is the collection of writings on logic sometimes called the Organon. The
reference here is to Posterior Anafytics, Bk. II, Ch. 3-1 0 and 1 3. But logic has no light
to cast on the question about to be raised.
3 3 On the possible non-silliness of this definition, see the footnote to 1 006a 32.
And one ought first to examine the definitions that result from
divisions. 34 For there is nothing in the definition other than the general 1 037b 30
class that is mentioned first and specific differences within it; each of
the other general classes is the first one with the differences taken in
along with it, such as, first, animal, next, two-footed animal, then,
featherless two-footed animal, and it is said in the same way through 1 038a
even more steps. But it makes no difference at all whether it is stated by
means of many steps or few, and therefore not even whether by means
of a few or by means of two; and of the two, one is the specific difference
and the other is the general class, as with two-footed animal, animal
is the genus and the other part the specific difference. So if the genus
taken simply does not have being apart from the species which belong
to the genus, or if it does have being but as material (for the voice is
a genus and material, and its differentiations make forms and letters
out of that), it is clear that a definition is an articulation consisting of
specific differences. 35
But surely it is necessary also to divide the difference into its 1 038a 1 0
differences; for instance, provided-with-feet is a difference belonging
to animal, and next one must recognize the difference within animal
provided-with-feet insofar as it is provided with feet, so that one ought
not to say that of what is provided with feet, one sort is feathered and
the other featherless, if one is to state things properly (for one would do
this rather through ineptness), but instead that one sort is cloven footed
and the other uncloven, since these are difference that belong to a foot,
cloven-footedness being a certain kind of footedness. And one wants
to go on continually in this way until one gets to things that have no
differences; and then there will be just as many kinds of foot as there are
specific differences, and the kinds of animal-provided-with-feet will
be equal in number to the differences. So if that is the way these things
are, it is clear that the difference that brings the statement to completion
will be the thinghood of the thing and its definition, if indeed one ought 1 038a 20
34 This method is exhibited in Plato's Sophist, with a first example at 21 8B-221 A. One
starts with a general class wide enough to include the thing being defined, then keeps
dividing it in two until a last class just fits. As Aristotle points out, one need not report
anything but one last general class and the specific difference that restricts it to the
nature defined.
35 This first conclusion shows that the genus is a subordinate part in the definition,
so that the q uestion of its unity becomes, what makes the differences one?
1 44 Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 1 2
not to repeat the same things many times in definitions, since that is
overly fastidious. But this does in fact happen, for whenever one says
animal, provided with feet and two footed, one has said nothing other
than animal having feet, having two feet; and if one divides this by an
appropriate division, one will say the same things even more times,
times equal in number to the divisions.
So if a difference comes into being out of a difference, the one that
brings this to completion will be the form and the thinghood of the
thing; but if a difference is brought in incidentally, such as if one were
to divide what is provided with feet into one sort that is white and
another sort that is black, there would be as many differences as cuts.
Therefore it is clear that a definition is an articulation consisting of
1 038a 30 differences, and arising out of the last of these when it is right. And
this would be evident if one were to rearrange definitions of this sort,
such as that of a human being, stating "animal, two footed, provided
with feet," since "provided with feet" is superfluous after one has said
"two footed." But there is no ordering in the thinghood of the thing;
for how is one supposed to think of one thing as following and another
preceding?36 So concerning definitions that result from divisions, let
this much be said first about what sort of things they in particular are.
1 038b Chapter 13 But since the investigation concerns thinghood, let us

go back to that again. And just as the underlying thing, and what it
is for something to be, and what is made out of these are said to be
thinghood, so too is the univeisal. Now what has been said concerns
two of these (for it concerns what it is for something to be, and of the
underlying thing it has been said that what underlies has two senses,
being either a this, in the sense that an animal underlies its attributes,
or material, in the sense that it underlies its complete being-at-work),
but it seems to some people that the universal is responsible for a thing
most of all, and that the universal is a governing source, and for that
reason let us go over this. For it seems to be impossible for any of
1 038b 1 0 the things meant universally to be thinghood. For in the first place,
the thinghood of each thing is what each is on its own, which does not
36 That is, all those intermediate differences that are obviously unnecessary when
stated out of order, must be simply unnecessary in the thinghood itself, when not
subjected to the temporal ordering of speech.
Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 1 3 1 45
belong to it by virtue of anything else, while the universal is a common

property, since what is meant universally is what is of such a nature
as to belong to more than one thing. Of which of them, then, will it be
the thinghood? For it is of either all or none, and of all it cannot be; but
if it were of one, that one would also be the others, since those things
of which the thinghood is one, and for which what it is for them to be
is one thing, are also themselves one thing.
Again, thinghood is what is not attributed to any underlying thing,
but the universal is always attributed to some underlying thing.
But could it be like this: that the universal does not admit of being
thinghood in the same way as what it is for something to be, yet is
included in this, the way animal is in human being or horse? In that
case, it is clear that there would be some articulation of it. And it makes
no difference if it is not the articulation of everything in the thinghood 1 038b 20
of a thing, for this will nonetheless be the thinghood of something, as
human being is of the human being in whom it is present, so that the
same thing will turn out again to be the case, since the thinghood would
belong to that kind, such as animal, in which it would be present as
peculiar to it. And what's more, it is impossible and absurd that what
is a this and an independent thing, if it is composed of anything, should
have as a component something that is not an independent thing or a
this but an of-such-a-sort; for what is not an independent thing and is an
of-this-sort would be more primary than an independent thing and a
this. But that is exactly what cannot be, for neither in articulation, nor in
time, nor in their coming-to-be could attributes be more primary than
an independent thing, for they would also be separate. And on top of
this, there would be another independent thing present in Socrates, so
that an independent thing would belong to two things. And in general 1 038b 30
it follows that if human being, and whatever things are meant in that
way, are thinghood, none of the things present in their articulations are
the thinghood of anything, nor are they present separately from them,
nor in anything else; I mean, for example, that there is not any " animal"
besides the particular kinds, nor do any of the other components in
their articulations have being separately.
So for those who pay attention, it is clear from these things that
nothing that belongs to anything universally is thinghood, and that 1 039a
none of the things attributed as common properties signifies a this, but
only an of-this-sort. And if this were not so, among other consequences
there would also be the third man. 37 And it is clear in this way too: for it
is impossible for an independent thing to consist of independent things
present in it in a fully active way, since what is in that way actively
two could never be actively one, though if it were two potentially, it
would be one. (For example, what is double is made of two halves,
but only potentially, since being a half in a fully active way separates
it.) Therefore, if an independent thing is one, it will not be made of
independent things present in it in that way, which Democritus says
1 039a 1 0 correctly; for he says it is impossible for one to come to be out of two
or two out of one, since he make the independent things uncuttable
magnitudes. Accordingly, it is likewise clear that this will hold also in
the case of number, if a number is an assemblage of units as is said by
some people; for either the number two is not one thing, or there is no
unit actively in it.
But there is an impasse. For if no independent thing can be made
out of universals, because the universal signifies an of-this-sort but not
a this, and no independent thing admits of being composed of active
independent things, every independent thing would be not composed
of parts, so that there could not be an articulation in speech of any
independent thing. But surely it seems to everyone and has been said
1 039a 20 from earliest times that a definition belongs to an independent thing
either solely or most of all; but now it seems not to belong to this either.
Therefore there will be no definition of anything; or in a certain way
there will be and in a certain way there will not. And what is said will
be more clear from things said later.
Chapter 14 But it is also clear from these same things what follows
for those who say that the forms are independent things and separate,
and at the same time make the form be a compound of a general class
and its specific differences. For if the forms have being, and animal
is in human being and in horse, it is either the same thing and one in
number, or it is different; for it is clear that it is one in articulation, since
1 039a 30 the one stating it goes through the same articulation in both cases. If,
then, there is a human being itself that in virtue of itself is a this and
separate, it must also consist of things, such as animal and two footed,
that signify a this and are separate and independent things, so that this
3 7 See the footnote to 990b 1 7.

Book VII (Book Z) Chapter 1 5 1 47
will be true in particular of animal. And then, if what is one and the
same, just as you are with yourself, is in horse and in human being,
how will something be one that is in things that have being separately, 1 039b
and for what reason will this animal not be separate even from itself?
Next, if it is to partake in two-footedness as well as in many-footedness,
something impossible will follow, since contrary things will belong at
the same time to the very thing that is one and a this; while if it does
not partake in both, what is the way of it when one says that animal
is two footed or footed? Perhaps they are just sitting there together,
either touching or mixed, but all that is absurd.
But if animal is different in different species, then those things of
which animal is the thinghood would be, in a manner of speaking,
unbounded,38 since it is not in an incidental way that human being
contains animal. What's more, animal itself will be many things, since 1 039b 1 0
the animal in each species is its thinghood (for it is not attributed in
virtue of anything else, and if it were, then human being would consist
of that, and that would be its genus), and further, all the things of which
human being consists would be forms, and so none could be the form
of one thing but the thinghood of another, for that would be impossible;
therefore there will be one animal-itself each among the things in the
various kinds of animal. Yet what does that come from, and how does
it consist of animal itself? Or how could that be animal, for which
this thing in question, aside from animal itself, is itself the thinghood?
Furthermore, in the case of perceptible things, not only these results
follow, but others more absurd than these. So if it is impossible for
things to be this way, it is clear that there are not forms of perceptible
things in the way that some people say there are.39
Chapter 15 Now since the composite whole and its articulation 1 039b 20
are different kinds of thinghood (and I mean that one kind of thing
hood in this sense is the articulation with the material taken in along
with it, while the other is entirely the articulation), there is destruction
of all those things that are called independent things in the former
sense (since there is also coming into being), but of the articulation
38 The point is not that there might be infinitely many kinds of animal, but that the
nature of each kind would have an indeterminacy at its core.
39 Note once again that Aristotle does not dispute that there are separate forms which
are themselves independent things, but only how there are.
there is no destruction in the sense rnat it is passing away (for nei

ther is there coming-into-being of it, since it is not being-a-house
that comes about but being-this-house), but they are or are not with
out coming to be or perishing, since it has been shown that no one
either generates or makes them.40 And this is why there is no defini
tion of nor demonstration about particular perceptible independent
1 039b 3 0 things: because they contain material that is of such a nature that
they are capable of being or not being, which is why all the partic
ulars among them are destructible. So if demonstration is of what
is necessary; and definition is suited to exact knowledge, while per
ceptible particulars do not admit of these, then just as knowledge is
not sometimes knowledge but sometimes ignorance, but it is opinion
that is of that sort, and in the same way it is neither demonstra
1 040a tion nor definition, but rather opinion, that concerns what admits
of being otherwise, it is clear that there could be no definition or
demonstration of these things. For destructible things are unclear to
those who have knowledge of them when they pass out of sense
perception, and even though articulations of them are preserved in
the soul, there will not be a definition any longer, nor a demonstra
tion. For this reason it is necessary, when one is making distinctions
aiming at a definition of any of the particulars, not to be unaware
that it is always subject to be annulled, since the thing cannot be de
fined.
But then neither can any form be defined, since they say that
1 040a 1 0 the form is a particular and is separate; but it is necessary that an
articulation be composed of words, and the definer will not make
up a word (since it would be unknown), but the words must be
names given in common to everything, so that they must also belong
to something else. For example, if someone were to define you, he
would say "a skinny, pale animal," or something else that would also
belong to some other thing. And if someone were to claim that nothing
prevents all the parts separately from belonging to many things, but
together they belong only to this one, one must say, first, that they
do belong to both of two things, for instance, in the case of two
footed animal, both to the animal and to the two-footed. (And in
the case of everlasting things it is necessary even that the parts be
40 This was shown in the first half of Ch. .

8
more primary than the compound of them, and rather, in fact, that
they even be separate, if human being is separate. For either nothing
is separate or both the parts are; so if nothing is, there would be 1 040a 20
no genus apart from its species, while if anything is to be separate,
the specific difference is too.) And next, one must say that the parts
are more primary in being, and so they are not wiped out when
the wholes are.
And next after this, if the forms consist of forms (for the things
of which they consist are more uncompounded than they are), those
things of which the form consists, such as animal and two footed, will
still have to apply to many things. If they did not, how would they
be known? For there would be a form which was incapable of being
attributed to more than one thing, but that doesn't seem possible,
but rather that every form is capable of being shared in. So just as
was said, it escapes notice that there is an impossibility of defining
among everlasting things, but most of all that this is the case with
those that are unique, such as the sun or moon. For people miss the
mark not only by adding things of a sort such that, if they were
taken away, the sun would still be the sun, such as "going around 1 040a 30
the earth" or "hidden at night" (for if it were to stand still or shine
at night it would no longer be the sun, but it would be absurd if it
were not, since "the sun" signifies a certain independent thing), but
also by including things that admit of applying to something else,
such that, if another thing of that kind came into being, it would
clearly be a sun; therefore the articulation is common, but the sun was 1 040b
understood to be among the particular things, as is Cleon or Socrates.
Otherwise, why does none of them come out with a definition of a
form? For it would become clear when one tried it that what is now
being said is true.
Chapter 16 And it is clear that most of what seem to be indepen

dent things are potencies, not only the parts of animals (since none of
them is separate, and when they are separated, even then they all have
being only as material), but also earth and fire and air, since none of
them is one, but just like a heap, until some one thing is ripened or
born out of them. Now one might assume especially that, in things with 1 040b 1 0
souls, the parts that are intimately related to the parts of the soul could
come to be of both sorts, since they have being both in full activity and
in potency, by having sources of motion stemming from something
in the joints,41 on account of which some animals live when they are
divided up. But still, whenever the parts are one and continuous by
nature, and not by force or by growing parasitically, they will all have
being as potencies; for the exceptions are defective instances.
And since one is meant in just the same way as being, and the
thinghood that belongs to what is one is also one, and those things
of which the thinghood is one in number are one in number, it is
clear that neither oneness nor being admits of being the thinghood
of things, just as being-an-element or being-a-source could not be
1 040b 20 thinghood; instead, we are seeking what it is that is the source, in
order that we may trace things back to what is more knowable in
itself. Now among these, being and oneness are thinghood more so
than are sourcehood and elementality and causality; but it is not at
all even these, if indeed nothing else that is a common property is
thinghood either; for thinghood belongs to nothing other than itself
and that which has it, of which it is the thinghood. What's more, what
is one could not be in more than one place at the same time, but a
common property is present in more than one place; therefore it is
clear that none of the things that are present as universals is separate,
apart from particulars.
But those who speak about the forms in one way speak rightly in
separating them, if they are independent things, but in another way
1 040b 30 say wrongly that what is one-applied-to-many is a form.42 The reason
is that they cannot give a complete account of which things of that sort
are independent and indestructible things, apart from the particular
and perceptible things, so they make them the same in kind as the
destructible things (since we know these), human-being-itself or horse
itself, adding to the perceptible things the word "itself." And yet, even
1 041 a if we had not seen the stars, nevertheless I suppose there would have
41 Any change of place by or in an animal must start from a joint, where one side
stays fixed for the motion to push off against. (See Motion of Animals, Ch. 1 .) So it
might seem that a severed part could live in isolation, so long as it included a joint.
42 In Plato's dialogues, Socrates will often say something like, "aren't we accustomed
to speak of the many beautiful things but also, distinct from these, one form that is
the beautiful itself?" This is the beginning, not the end, of thinking about forms. If
one hastily decides that wherever there is a many that can in any way be spoken of as
one, that one thing is a form, then the forms become classes or universals or common
properties (gene, ta katholou, koina), which cannot also be separate and have causal
responsibility for things.
Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 1 7 1 51
been everlasting independent things besides the ones we knew, so that

now too, even if we cannot say what they are, it is still presumably
necessary that there be some. That, then, none of the things attributed
universally is an independent thing, and that no independent thing is
composed of independent things, is clear.
Chapter 17 But what one ought to say thinghood is, and of what
sort it is, let us speak about again, as though making another start;
for perhaps from these discussions there will also be clarity about
that kind of thinghood that is separate from perceptible independent
things. Now since thinghood is a certain kind of source and cause, 1 041 a 1 0
one must go after it from that starting point. And the why of things is
always sought after in this way: why one thing belongs to something
else.43 For to look for the reason why a cultivated human being is a
cultivated human being is to seek either what was just said, why the
human being is cultivated, or something else. Now why something is
itself is not a quest after anything (for the that or the being-so has to
be present all along as something evident-! mean, say, that the moon
is eclipsed-but "because a thing is itself" is one formulation and one
cause that fits all, why a human being is a human being or cultivated
is cultivated, unless someone were to say that each thing is indivisible
from itself, and that is what it is to be one; but this is common to 1 041 a 20
everything and a shortcutting of the question) . But one could search
for the reason why a human being is a certain sort of animal. And in
that case this is clear, that one is not searching for the reason why that
which is a human being is a human being; therefore, one is inquiring
why something is present as belonging to something. (That it is present
has to be evident, for if that is not so, one is inquiring after nothing.)
For example, "why does it thunder?" is, "why does noise come about
in the clouds?," for thus it is one thing's belonging to another that is
inquired after. Or why are these things here, say bricks and stones,
a house? It is clear, then, that one is looking for what is responsible,
which in some cases, as presumably with a house or a bed, is that for 1 041 a 30
the sake of which it is, but in some cases it is that which first set the
43 In Posterior Analytics II, Ch. 1 -2, Aristotle says that all questions fall into four kinds:
what is the case, why, whether something exists, and what something is. He argues
that they all go back to the why, as a search for a middle term through which one
thing belongs to another.
thing in motion, since this too is responsible for it. But while the latter
sort of cause is looked for in cases of coming into being and destruction,
the former applies even to the being of something.
But the thing in question escapes notice most of all in those cases in
1 041 b which one thing is not said to belong to another, as when the thing one
is seeking is what a human being is, because one states it simply and
does not distinguish that these things are this thing. But it is necessary ·
to inquire by dividing things at the joints; and if one does not do this,
it becomes a cross between inquiring after nothing and inquiring after
something. But since it is necessary that the being of something hold
on to and be present to something, it is clear that one is asking why
the material is something; so, "why are these things here a house?"
because what it is to be a house belongs to them. And this thing here,
this body holding on in this condition, is a human being. Therefore
what is being sought is the responsible thing by means of which the
material is something, and this is the form. Accordingly, it is clear that
1 041 b 1 0 in the case of simple things, there is no process of inquiry or teaching,
but a different way of questing after such things.
But then there is what is composed of something in such a way that
the whole is one, in the manner not of a heap but of a syllable-and the
syllable is not the letters, nor are B plus A the same as the syllable BA,
any more than flesh is fire plus earth (for when they are decomposed,
the wholes, such as flesh or a syllable, no longer are, but the letters, or
the fire and earth, are); therefore there is something that is the syllable,
not only the letters, the vowel and the consonant, but also something
else, and the flesh is not only fire and earth, or the hot and the cold,
but also something else. Now if that something else must necessarily
either be an element or be made of elements, then if it is an element
1 041 b 20 there will be the same argument again (since flesh would be made of
this plus fire plus earth, and something else again, so that it goes on
to infinity), but if it consists of an element, obviously it would consist
not of one but of more than one, or else it would itself be that one, so
that again in this case we will state the same argument as in the case
of the flesh or the syllable. But it would seem that this something else
is something, and is not an element, and is in fact responsible for the
flesh's being this and the syllable's being that, and similarly too in the
other cases. But this is the thinghood of each thing (for that is what is
primarily responsible for the being of it)-and since some things are
not independent things, but those that are independent things are put
Book VI I (Book Z) Chapter 1 7 1 53
together by nature and in accordance with nature,44 it would seem 1 041 b 30

that it is this nature that is thinghood, which is not an element but a
source--but an element is that which something is divided into, being
present in it as material, such as the A and the B of the syllable.
44 Products of art or craft have thing hood in a derivative sense, since they borrow their
materials from natural things, and do not maintain themselves by activity. Random
heaps are scarcely things at all. Attributes and properties belong to wholes, and parts
are potencies that contribute to the maintenance of wholes. What else is there? At
this stage of the inquiry in quest of being itself, Aristotle has cleared away everything
but plants, animals, and the ordered cosmos.
Book VIII (Book H)
Form and Being-at-Work1
Chapter 1 Now one ought to reckon up the results of what has 1 042 a
been said, and, putting them all together, to set out the final point
to which they come. And it has been said that the causes, sources,
and elements of independent things are being looked for. But while
some independent things are acknowledged by everyone, some people
make declarations about some that are peculiar to them; the acknowl
edged ones are the natural ones, such as fire, earth, water, air, and the
other simple bodies, and then the plants and their parts, and the ani 1 04 2 a 1 0
mals, and the parts of animals, and the whole cosmos and the parts of
the cosmos, but some people mention peculiarly the forms and mathe
matical things. But in one way it follows from the discussions that what
it is for something to be, and what underlies something, are kinds of
thinghood, and in another way that thinghood is the general class,
more than the specific one, and the universal more than the particu
lars; and the forms are also connected with universal and the general
class (since it is by the same argument that they seem to be indepen
dent things). And since what it is for something to be is thinghood, arid
the articulation of that is a definition, for that reason distinctions were
made about definition and aboufwhat something is in virtue of itself;
and since a definition is a statement, and a statement has parts, it was
also necessary to know about parts-which sort are parts of an inde 1 042 a 20
pendent thing and which not, and if these are the same ones that are
parts of the definition. And further, in the course of this, it turned out
that neither the universal nor the general class is thinghood, but as for
the forms and the mathematical things, one must examine these later,
since some people say that these have being apart from perceptible
independent things.
But now let us go over what concerns the acknowledged indepen
dent things. And these are the perceptible ones. And all perceptible
independent things have material. And what underlies something is
its thinghood, and in one sense this is the material (and by material I
mean that which, while not being actively a this, is a this potentially),
1 This title for Book VIII supplied by the translator.

1 56 Book VI II (Book H) Chapter 1
but in another sense what underlies something is its articulation and

form, which, being a this, is separate in articulation; and a third sort of
1 042a 30 underlying thing is what is composed of these, of which alone there
is coming into being and destruction, and which is separate simply.
For of the independent things in the sense that corresponds to the
articulation, some are separate simply; while others are not.2
But it is clear that the material too is thinghood, for in all changes
between contraries, there is something that underlies the changes;
for example, in change of place there is something that is now here
and in turn elsewhere, and in change by increase there is something
that is now just this size and in turn less or more, and in alteration
1 042b there is something that is now healthy and in turn sick. Similarly, in
change of thinghood, there is something that is now in the course of
coming into being and in turn in the course of passing away; and is
now an underlying thing by being a this and in turn an underlying
thing by being a lack. And the other kinds of change accompany this
one, but it does not accompany one or two of the others, since it is not
necessary; if something has material for changing place, that it also
have material for becoming and perishing (and what the difference
is between becoming simply; and in the sense other than simply, has
been stated in the writings on nature3).
Chapter 2 Now since thinghood, in the sense of what underlies a

1 042b 1 0 thing as its material, is acknowledged, and is thinghood in potency,
it remains to say what the thinghood of perceptible things is in the
sense of being-at-work. And Democritus seems to think that there are
three ways things differ (for he thinks that the underlying body, the
material, is one and the same, while what differ are design, which is
2 In the crudest sense, form seems to be superficial and variable, while material
underlies it and persists. But the composite whole of material and form also persists
through change, and underlies the attributes that come and go. But in the case of
animals and plants, it is material that comes and goes, while only form remains intact
and underlies each one. In the cosmos, too, material is exchanged and rearranged,
while the form stays as it is. In discussing forms, as we are doing now, we are separating
them in thought, as universals, but as they are in themselves, as causes of those things
that are most properly said to be, their separateness is in no way dependent on our
thinking. The inquiry is now in quest of forms as they are in their own right.
3 See Physics 225a 1 2-20. Any change can be thought of as becoming-something
in-particular, but simple becoming or simple perishing may not belong to the stars,
even if they change place. See also 1 044b 5:-8.
Book VI I I (Book H) Chapter 2 1 57
shape, twist, which is position, and grouping, which is order). But it is

obvious that there are many differences; for instance, some things are
spoken of by reference to the composition of their material, as are all
those made by mixing, such as milk blended with honey, others by way
of a binding-cord, such as a bundle, others by means of glue, such as a
book, others by means of bolts, such as a box, others by more than one
of these, others by position, such as a threshold and a capstone (since
these differ by being placed in a certain way), others by time, such as 1 042b 20
dinner and breakfast, others by place, such as the winds, and others
by the attributes of perceptible things such as hardness and softness,
density and rarity, or dryness and fluidity, some things differing by
way of some of these, some by all of them, and in all cases, some by
exceeding and others by being exceeded. Therefore it is clear that "is"
is meant in just as many ways; for something is a threshold because it
is placed in a certain way, and its being means its being placed in that
certain way, and being ice means being condensed in a certain way.
And the being of some things will even be defined by means of all of
these, by something being mixed, something else blended, something 1 042b 30
else tied together, something else packed together, and something else
using the other differences, such as a hand or a foot.
So one must grasp the kinds of differences (since these will be the
sources of being), such as those by more and less or dense and rare or
the other things of that kind, for all these are ways of exceeding and
falling short. And if anything differs by shape, or by smoothness and
roughness, all these are by means of the straight and the curved. But for
other things, their being will be their being mixed, and their not-being 1 043a
the opposite. So it is clear from these considerations that if thinghood
is the cause of each thing's being, it is among these differences that one
must look for what is responsible for the being of each of these things.
Now none of these examples is an independent thing,4 not even when
linked with something else, but still there is an analogous structure in
each of them; and just as, among independent things, what is attributed
to the material is itself its being-at-work, so too in the other definitions
it is what is most nearly a being-at-work. For example, if one needs to
define a threshold, we will say it is a wooden plank or a stone placed in
such-and-such a way, or of a house that it is bricks and lumber placed
4 Every example given here is an artificial product, or part of a natural one.

1 58 Book VIII (Book H) Chapter 2
thus-and-so (and further, in some cases, that for the sake of which it
1 043a 1 0 is), or if it is ice that needs to be defined, that it is water solidified
and packed together in such-and-such a way; and harmony is such
and-such a mixing of high and low tones, and one would define in the
same way in other cases. Now it is clear from these examples that the
being-at-work and the articulation are different for different materials;
for of some it is the composition, of others the mixture, and of others
some other thing that has been mentioned. That is why, of those who
give definitions, some of them, saying what a house is, that it is stones,
bricks, and lumber, describe the house in potency; since these things
are material, but others, saying that it is a sheltering enclosure for
possessions and living bodies, or adding something else of that kind,
describe its being-at-work; still others, putting together both of these,
describe the third sort of thinghood that is made out of these (for the
articulation by means of the differences seems to be a statement of
1 043a 20 the form and the being-at-work, while the one that proceeds from the
constituents seems rather to be a statement of the material) . And it
is such definitions that Archytas used to give in a similar way; since
they are of both together. For example: What is windlessness? Stillness
in an expanse of air. What is a calm? Levelness of the sea; the sea is
what underlies it as material, and the being-at-work and form is the
levelness.
So from what has been said, it is clear what a perceptible indepen
dent thing is, and also in what manner it has its being; for in one way it
has being as material, and in another way as form and being-at-work,
while in a third sense it is what is composed of these.
Chapter 3 One must not ignore the fact that it sometimes escapes
1 043a 30 notice whether a name indicates a composite independent thing or its
being-at-work and form, for instance whether "house" is a sign jointly
for a shelter made of bricks and stones placed in such-and-such a way,
or for the being-at-work and form, namely a shelter, or whether "line"
indicates twoness in a length or twoness,5 or whether "animal" means
a soul in a body or a soul, since this is the thinghood and being-at
work of a certain kind of body. But "animal" might also be applied to
both, not as meaning one articulation, but as pointing to one thing. But
5 See 1 036b 1 2-1 8 and footnote.

while these things make a difference in some other respects, they make
no difference to the inquiry after perceptible thinghood, since what it 1 043b
is for something to be belongs to the form and the being-at-work. For
a soul and being-a-soul are the same thing, but being-human and a
human being are not the same, unless the soul is going to be called a
human being, and in that way they are the same in a certain way, but
in a certain way not.
Now it is obvious to those who inquire about it that a syllable is
not made of its letters plus combination, nor a house out of bricks
plus combination, and rightly so, for neither combination nor mixture
is among those things of which they are the combination or the
mixture. And similarly too with all other things; for example, if a
threshold is what it is by placement, then the placement does not come
from the threshold but rather the latter from the former.6 Nor indeed 1 043b l 0
is humanness anirnalness plus two-footedness, but there has to be
something which is apart from these, since these are its material, and
that something is neither an element nor derived from an element,
but since they leave this out, people describe its material. So if this
is responsible for the being and thinghood of a thing, one could
call this the thinghood itself. (Now it is necessary that this either be
everlasting, or else be destructible withoutbeing in the process of being
destroyed and have come into being without being in the process of
becoming? But it has been demonstrated and made clear in other
chapters that no one makes or generates the form, but a this is made
and something composed of form and material comes into being. But
whether those things that are the thinghood of destructible things have
being separately is not at all clear yet, except that it is clear for certain
things at least that this is not possible, as many as are not capable of 1 043b 20
being apart from the particulars, such as a house or piece of furniture.
So presumably these things themselves are not independent things,
nor is any of the other things that are not composed by nature, for one
may posit that nature alone is the thinghood in destructible things.B)
6 That is, the placement does not come out of the threshold as one of its constituents,
but the threshold comes out of the placement as effect from cause.
7 If this extra something could undergo destruction or generation, it would itself be
a composite, and would need something else to make it whole.
8 A house is relatively stable, and so resembles a genuine independent thing, but
nothing is at work in it maintaining it as a house. Human art sets the natural tendencies
1 60 Book VII I (Book H) Chapter 3
And so there is a certain appropriateness to the impasse that the

Antistheneans and other crude people of that sort9 used to raise,
claiming that it is impossible to define what anything is (since the
definition is just beating around the bush), though it is possible to teach
what sort of thing something is, as with silver, one cannot say what it
is, but that it is like tin; therefore it does belong to an independent thing
to be capable of a definition and an account, namely to a compound
1 04 3 b 3 0 one, whether it is intelligible or perceptible, but no longer to those
things of which this first consists, so long as a defining statement
indicates something attributed to something and requires that there
be something as material and something else as form.
And it is also clear for this reason that, if independent things are in
some way numbers, it is in this way that they are composed of units
and not in the way that some people say, for a definition is a certain
kind of number, since it too is divisible into indivisible parts (since
articulations are not infinite), and that is the sort of thing a number is.
And just as, if something is subtracted from or added to the units of
which a number is composed, it is no longer the same number but a
1 044a different one, even if the tiniest bit were subtracted or added, so too,
neither the definition nor what it is for something to be will any longer
be what it is if anything is subtracted or added. And it is necessary to
a number that there be something by means of which it is one, but as
things stand, the people who speak of thinghood as numbers are not
able to say by means of what each is one (for either each is not one but
is like a heap, or if it is one, it needs to be said what it is that makes one
thing out of many); and a definition is one, but similarly they cannot
account for this. And it turns out this way reasonably, for it belongs
to the same argument that thinghood is also one in the same way, not
however in the way they say it is, as though it were a unit or a point,
but each independent thing is a complete being-at-work-staying-itself,
of the materials in it against each other, so that the roof, in trying to fall, holds up the
walls, while the walls, in trying to fall, hold up the roof. But any homeowner knows
that the only inherent activity of the house as such is to fall apart.
9 Antisthenes was the first of the people called Cynics. They were not philosophers
but public moralists, attacking conventional beliefs and scorning wealth. In Plato's
Theaetetus, beginning at 201 E, Socrates gives a more philosophic version of this
argument (his "dream," since in fact the Antistheneans came along after his death).
Aristotle's example of the syllable, and his comparison to a number, as instances of
wholeness and unity, come from Socrates's refutation of the argument.
Book VII I (Book H) Chapter 4 1 61
and a particular nature. And just as a number does not have any more 1 044a 1 0
or less, neither does thinghood in the sense of form, but if at all, only
thinghood that includes material.
So about the coming into being and destruction of what are called
independent things,lO in what sense they admit of it and in what
sense they are incapable of it, and about the tracing back of things
to numbers, let distinctions have been made to this extent.
Chapter 4 Concerning the thinghood of material things, one must

not overlook the fact that, even if all things are made out of the same
first constituent or the same primary elements, and the same material
is the source of their coming-into-being, still there is some material
peculiar to each kind of thing, as of phlegm, what is sweet or fatty, or
of bile, what is bitter or some other things, though perhaps these are 1 044a 20
made of the same thing. And there come to be a number of materials
for the same thing whenever one of them is material for another, as
is the case with the phlegm composed of what is fatty and sweet if
what is fatty is made of what is sweet, or of bile, by a decomposition
into the first bile material. For one thing comes from another in two
senses, either because it will be further down the road or because it
arises when something is decomposed back into its source. And it is
possible, when the material is one, for different things to come from it
on account of the cause that sets it in motion, as out of wood either a
box or a bed. But in some cases the material has to be different if the
things are different; for instance, a saw could not be made out of wood,
nor does this depend on the cause that sets its coming-into-being in
motion, since it will not make a saw out of wool, or out of wood either.
If, therefore, the same thing admits of being made out of a different 1 044a 30
material, it is clear that the art and origin that sets its coming-into
being in motion is the same, for if both the material and the mover
1 0 At 1 043b 1 4, Aristotle has made the crucial move out of the perceptible realm,
saying that thinghood is most properly ascribed to whatever it is that causes a thing
to be one and whole, the something else that is not an element or constituent of it.
In Bk. VII, Ch. 1 6, he concluded that most of the so-called independent things are
only parts and potencies, that is dependent things; now he has concluded that even
the animals, plants, and cosmos, each of which is a complete being-at-work-staying
itself, are dependent on that something else that causes them, which is no part of the
world of sensory experience, but has been deduced as underlying it and responsible
for it.
1 62 Book VIII (Book H) Chapter 4
were different, the thing produced would be too. So whenever one

is inquiring after what is responsible for something, since causes are
meant in more than one way, one must state all the causes the thing
admits of. For example, what is the cause of a human being in the
sense of material? Isn't it the menstrual fluid? And what is the cause
that sets the coming-into-being in motion? Isn't it the semen? And
what is the cause in the sense of form? What it keeps on being in order
1 044b to be. And what is the cause for the sake of which it is? Its end, though
presumably both of the last two causes are the same. And one must
state the nearest causes: What is the material? Not fire or earth but the
material peculiar to the thing.
So about the natural independent things that come into being, it is
necessary to approach them in this way if one is going to approach them
in the right way, if in turn the kinds of cause are these and this many
and one has to know the causes, but in the case of the independent
things that are natural but everlasting, it is another story. For perhaps
some of them do not have material, or not this sort but only material
for change of place. Nor is there material for those things that are by
nature, but are not independent things, though what underlies them
1 044b 1 0 is an independent thing. For instance, what is the cause of an eclipse
what material? There is none, but it is the moon that undergoes it. But
what is responsible for it in the sense of setting it in motion and wasting
away the light? The earth. And presumably there is nothing it is for the
sake of.ll The formal cause is the articulation of it, but the articulation
is unrevealing if it does not include the cause. For example, what is an
eclipse? A deprivation of light. But if one adds "by the action of the
earth's coming to be in the middle," this is the articulation with the
cause in it. But with sleep, it is not clear what is the primary thing that
undergoes it. But isn't it the animal? Yes, but this in which part, which
one primarily? The heart, or something else. And then, by the action
of what? And then, what is it that is undergone, that happens to that
1 1 This goes together with the fact that the eclipse does not belong to any inde
pendent thing, and does not contribute to its wholeness. It is a relation among the
earth, moon, and sun, and incidental to them all. Aristotle likes the example of the
eclipse (which he repeatedly uses in the Posterior Ana/ytics) because the earth literally
mimics the middle term of a syllogism, causing a connection between the extreme
terms (moon and sun).
part and not to the whole? Isn't it a certain kind of motionlessness?

Yes, but this on account of the primary part's undergoing what? 1 044b 20
Chapter 5 But since some things are or are not without coming
into being or being destroyed, such as points, if they are at all,l2 or in
general the forms (for whiteness does not come into being, but wood
becomes white, if everything that comes into beingbecomes something
from something), not all contraries could arise out of one another, but
a pale person comes from a swarthy one in a different way from that in
which white comes from black; and there is not material in everything,
but in those things of which there is a coming-into-being and a change
into one another. So there will not be material in those things that are
or are not without changing.
There is an impasse about how the material of each thing is related 1 044b 30
to contraries. For example, if the body is potentially healthy, and the
contrary of health is sickness, is it potentially both? And is water
potentially wine and vinegar? Or is it material for the former as a
result of an active condition and a form, but for the latter as a result
of a deprivation and decay that is contrary to nature? But there is also
an impasse about why wine is not material for vinegar nor potentially
vinegar (even though vinegar comes from it), and why a living thing
is not potentially a corpse. Or is it not so, but rather the decays are 1 045a
incidental to the animal and the wine, while the material of the animal
is itself, by virtue of decay, a potency and material for a corpse, and
water for vinegar, since the decayed things come from the others only
in the sense that night comes from day. And all the things that change
into one another in that way have to tum back into their material,
such as if an animal is to come from a corpse, it must tum first into its
material, and in that way next into an animal, or vinegar into water,
and in that way then into wine.
Chapter 6 And in regard to the impasse stated about both defi

nitions and numbers, what is responsible for their being one? For all
things that have more than one part, and of which the sum is not like
a heap, but a whole that is something over and above the parts, have 1 045a 1 0
1 2 Euclid says "let there be a point A," and there is one. Aristotle regards them only
as limits of lines. See above, 1 002a 3 3-1 002b 7.
1 64 Book VI II (Book H) Chapter 6
something that is responsible for them; since among bodies, the cause
of the being-one of some of them is contact, and of others stickiness or
some other attribute of that sort. But a definition is one statement not
by being bundled together like the Iliad, but by being of one thing.l3
What then is it that makes humanness one, and why is it one and not
many, such as animal plus two footed, both otherwise but especially if,
as some people say, there is some animal-itself and two-footed-itself?
For why is humanness not those things themselves, and why will hu
mans not be what they are by partaking not of humanness nor of one
thing but of two, animalness and two-footedness, so that humanness
1 045a 20 would not be one thing at all but more than one, namely animal plus
two footed?
Now it is clear that, for those who approach defining and explaining
in this way that they are accustomed to, it is not possible to give an
account of it and resolve the impasse. But if, as we say, there is one
thing that is material and one that is form, and the former has being as
potency and the latter as being-at-work, the thing sought after would
no longer seem to be an impasse. For this impasse is the same one there
would be if the definition of" overcoat" were a round bronze thing; for
the name would be a sign of this formulation, so that the thing sought
after is what is responsible for the being-one of the roundness and the
bronze. But no impasse any longer presents itself, because the one is
1 045a 30 material and the other is form. What, then, is responsible for this, for
the active being of what was in potency, other than the maker, in those
things of which there is a coming-into-being? For no other thing is
responsible for the potential sphere's being actively a sphere, but that
is what it is for it to be in either case.14 But there is one kind of material
that is intelligible and another kind that is perceptible, and one part
of the statement is always material and the other part being-at-work,
as a circle is a figure with respect to a plane. But as many things as do
1 3 We are presumably to imagine the twenty four papyrus rolls of the Iliad tied up
with string, since in the Poetics (1451 a), Aristotle says the poem is built around one
action.
1 4 The sphere in potency is the composite thing, looked at from the standpoint of
the bronze; the sphere in activity is the same thing, looked at from the standpoint
of its roundness. In the case of humanness (substituting rational for two footed), its
intelligible material is animality looked at as already pervaded by and straining toward
rationality, while its being-at-work is the activity combined with reason that inheres
in animality, and forms it into humanness.
Book VII I (Book H) Chapter 6 1 65
not have either intelligible or perceptible material, are each of them

immediately some very thing that is one, just as also some very thing 1 045b
that is, a this, an of-this-sort, a so-much (and this is why neither being
nor one is included in definitions), and what it is for something to be
is immediately a particular one and a particular being. Hence there is
no other thing responsible for the being-one of any of these, nor of the
being-a-being of each, since each is immediately a certain being and a
certain one, not in the sense of being in a class of beings or ones, nor of
being among things that have being apart from particulars.
On account of this impasse, some people talk about participation,
and are at a loss about what is responsible for participation and what
participating is; others talk about co-presence, just as Lycophron says 1 045b 1 0
that knowledge is a co-presence of knowing and a soul, while still
others say life is a composition or conjunction of a soul with a body. And
yet the same formulation applies to everything: for being healthy will
be a co-presence or conjunction or composition of a soul and health,
and the bronze's being a triangle will be a composition of bronze and
triangle, and white will be a composition of a surface and whiteness.
And the reason they say these things is that they are looking for a
formulation that unites potency and complete being-at-work, plus a
difference. But as was said, the highest level of material and the form
are one and the same thing,15 the former potentially, the latter actively;
so that looking for what is responsible for their being one is like looking 1 045b 20
for a cause of one thing; for each of them is a certain one, and what is in
potency and what is in activity are in a certain way one thing. Therefore
there is nothing else responsible, unless in the case of something that
moves it from potency to being-at-work, but every thing that does not
have material is simply something that is itself one.
1 5 The strongest statement of this is in On the Soul, at 41 2b 4-9, where Aristotle says
that there is no more question about whether a soul and body, or any thing and its
material, are one, than there is whether the wax and the shape pressed into it are
one, since complete being-at-work-staying-itself is exactly what one and being mean
in the sense that is primary and governing for each. So the conclusions of Book VIII
are (a) form is not an arrangement of parts but a being-at-work of material that has
the potency for it, (b) the thing hood of a thing is its form, and (c) the form itself has
an internal form/material structure, and is therefore unified as intelligible material-at
work. The whole relation of potency and being-at-work must now be examined, as
the next step in uncovering the causes and sources of being as being.
Book IX (Book 8)
Potency and Being-at-Work1
Chapter 1 What concerns being of the primary sort, toward which 1 045b 27
all the other ways of attributing being are traced back, has been
discussed, namely what concerns thinghood (for the other sorts of
being are articulated in virtue of the articulation of the thinghood of a
thing, the how-much, the of-what-sort, and the other things attributed 1 045b 30
in that way, since all of them will include the articulation of thinghood,
as we say in the first chapters); but since being is spoken of in one way
by way of what or of what sort or how much something is, but in
another way in virtue of potency and complete being-at-work, and of
a doing-something, let us make distinctions also about potency and
complete-being-at-work, and first about potency in the sense in which
it is meant most properly, although it is not the sense that is most useful
for what we now want. For potency and being-at-work apply to more 1 046a
than just things spoken of in reference to motion. But when we have
discussed them in this sense, we will make clear their other senses in
the distinctions that concern being-at-work.
Now it has been distinguished by us in other places that potency
and being potential are meant in more than one way, and of these, let
the ones that are called powers ambiguously be set aside (for some
things are so called by means of some likeness, as in geometry we
speak of powers and incapacities by reference to something's being or
not being a certain way2), but as many of them as point to the same
form are all certain kinds of sources, and are meant in reference to one 1 046a 1 0
primary kind of potency, which is a source of change in some other
thing or in the same thing as other.3 For one kind is a power of being
acted upon, which is a source in the acted-upon thing itself of passive
change by the action of something else or of itself as other; another is
1 This title for Book IX supplied by the translator.

2 See 1 01 9b 33-34 and note.
3 This constant qualification, used here and in Bk. V. Ch. 1 2, serves to distinguish
potencies from a thing's nature. A doctor doctors himself as another, as a patient who
happens to be himself, but a cut in his finger heals itself in its own right; medical skill
is a potency, while the self-maintenance of a being as a whole is a nature. See 1 049b
9-1 1 .
1 68 Book IX (Book E>) Chapter 1
an active condition of being unaffected for the worse or for destruction

by the action of a source of change, either some other thing or itself as
other. For the articulation of the primary sort of potency is present in
the definitions of all of these.4 And these potencies in turn are spoken
of either as only acting or being acted upon, or as acting or being acted
upon well, so that in the descriptions of these potencies too, there are
present in a certain way the descriptions of the kinds of potency that
are more primary than they are.
1 046a 20 And it is clear that there is a sense in which the potency of acting and
being acted upon is one (since something is potential both by means
of its own potency to be acted upon and by something else's potency
to be acted upon by it), but there is a sense in which they are different.
For the one is in the thing acted upon (for it is by virtue of having a
certain kind of source, and even because its material is a certain kind
of source, that the acted-upon thing is acted upon, even though it is
one thing and is acted upon by the action of another-for something
oily is burnable and something that gives way just so is crushable, and
similarly in other cases), but the other is in the thing acting, as heat and
the housebuilding power are in, respectively, something that confers
heat and someone who can build houses; hence, insofar as something
has developed as a natural whole, it cannot be passive to itself, since it
is one thing and there is no other. And lack of capacity; or something
1 046a 30 incapable, is a deprivation opposite to this sort of potency, so that
every potency is contrary to an incapacity in the same thing, for the
same thing. But deprivation is meant in more than one way; for it is
the not-having what something would naturally have, either at alL or
when it would naturally have it, and either in the way that it would
naturally have it, such as completely, or just in any respect whatever.
And in some cases, when things that naturally have something do not
have it on account of force, we speak of them as lacking it.
4 The primary sense of potency is "source of change in another or as another." The

sense of mere logical possibility is one of the ambiguous capacities dismissed above.
Even to be acted upon, a thing must contain its own source of being acted upon, since
it could also have an active condition of imperviousness. Virgil's Aeneas is described as
resisting his own compassion for Dido as an oak tree resists the wind (Aeneid Book IV,
lines 441 -449), but Dante describes his acceptance of Beatrice's pity as the uprooting
of an oak (Purgatory Book XXXI, lines 70-73). Both conditions originate in the people
who have them, and both require work.
•.
Book IX (Book 0) Chapter 2 1 69
Chapter 2 But since some sources of this kind are present in things
without souls, and others in things with souls, both in the soul in
general and in the part of it that has reason, it is obvious that of 1 046b
potencies too, some will be irrational and some will include reason;
and this is why all the arts and the productive kinds of knowledge
are potencies, since they are sources of change in another thing, or
in the same thing as other. And all potencies that include reason are
themselves capable of contrary effects, but with the irrational ones,
one potency is for one effect, as something hot has a potency only for
heating, while the medical art is capable of causing disease or health.
And the reason is that knowledge is a reasoned account, while the
same reasoned account reveals both a thing and its lack, though not
in the same way, and in a sense pertains to both, though more so to its 1 046b 1 0
proper subject, so that such kinds of knowledge are necessarily about
contrary things, though about the one sort in their own right and the
other sort not in their own right; for the account is about the one in
virtue of itself, but about the other in a certain incidental way, since it
reveals the contrary by means of negation and removal, since the thing
that something primarily lacks is its contrary, and this is the removal
of that other thing.
Now since contraries do not come to be present in the same thing,
while knowledge is a potency that has reason, and the soul is a source
of motion, then even though something healthful produces only health
and something that heats produces only heat and something that cools
produces only cold, the person who knows produces both contraries. 1 04 6b 20
For a reasoned account pertains to both, though not in similar ways,
and is .in a soul that has a source of motion, so that it will set both
contraries in motion from the same source, connecting them to the
same account; which is why things that are potential in virtue ofreason
act in ways contrary to things that are potential without reason, since
contrary things are contained in one source, the reasoned account. And
it is clear that, with the potency of doing something well, the potency
of merely doing or suffering it follows along, while the former does
not always follow along with the latter, since the one doing something
well necessarily also does it, but the one merely doing it does not
necessarily also do it welLS
5 The last sentence is a reminder that the positive potency is always primary. The
Chapter 3 There are some people, such as the Megarians, who say
1 046b 30 that something is potential only when it is active, but when it is not
active it is not potential; for instance someone who is not building
a house is not capable of building a house, but only the one who is
building a house, when he is building a house, is capable of it, and
similarly in other cases. The absurd consequences of this opinion are
not difficult to see. For it is clear that someone will not even be a house
builder if he is not building a house (since to be a house-builder is to
be capable of building a house), and similarly too with the other arts.
So if it is impossible to have such an art if one has not at some time
1 047a learned and taken hold of it, and then impossible not to have it if one
has not at some time lost it (and this is either by forgetfulness or by
some affliction or by time, for it is not by the destruction of the thing
with which the art is concerned, since it is always present), whenever
one stops he will not have the art, so if he starts building a house again
straight off, how will he have acquired the art? And it is similar with
things without souls; for there will not be anything cold or hot or sweet
or perceptible in any way when it is not being perceived, so that these
people turn out to be stating the Protagorean claim.6 But nothing will
have perception either, if it is not perceiving and doing so actively. So
if what does not have sight, and is of such a nature as to have it, when
it is of such a nature and moreover has being, is blind, then the same
1 047a 1 0 people will be blind many times during the same day, and deaf.
What's more, if what is lacking a potency is incapable, what is not
happening will be incapable of happening; but of what is incapable
of happening, it is false for anyone to say either that it is so or that it
will be so (since that is what incapable means), so that these assertions
abolish both motion and becoming. For what is standing will always
be standing and what is sitting always sitting, since it will not stand
up if it is sitting, since what does not have the potency of standing
up will be incapable of standing up. So if these things do not admit
structure is not of a neutral capacity with something overlaying it that directs it one
way or the other, but of a positive capacity that inherently goes together with a certain
knowledge, but can incidentally be turned in the negative direction. The survey of
kinds of potency in Ch. 1 and 2 repeatedly finds the same pattern: even passive
potencies are sources, even the potency to resist change is an active condition, and
even a two-sided potency is primarily directed to something's good.
6 See note to 1 007b 22. Protagoras and this claim of his play a central role in Plato's
Theaetetus, which is presented as narrated by one Megarian to another.
of being said, it is clear that potency and being-at-work are different

(for these assertions make potency and being-at-work the same, for 1 047a 20
which reason it is no small thing they are seeking to abolish), so that
it is possible for something to be capable of being yet not be, or be
capable of not being and yet be, and similarly with the other ways
of attributing being, that something that is capable of walking not be
walking, or that is capable of not walking be walking. What is capable
is that which would be in no way incapable if it so happened that the
being-at-work of which it is said to have the potency were present? I
mean, for instance, that if something is capable of sitting, and admits
of sitting, if it so happens that sitting is present to it, it will in no way be
incapable of it, and similarly if something is capable of being moved
or of causing motion, or of standing or making something stand, or of
being or becoming, or of not being or not becoming.
And the phrase being-at-work, which is designed to converge 1 047a 30
in meaning with being-at-work-staying-complete, comes to apply to
other things from belonging especially to motions, since being-at-work
seems to be motion most of all, and this is why people do not grant
being-in-motion to things that do not have being, though they do allow
them other attributes, for instance that things that do not have being
are thinkable or desirable, but are not moved, and this is because, while
not actively being, they would have to be in activity. For of the things 1 047b
that are not, some are potentially; but they are not, because they are
not at-work-staying-complete.
Chapter 4 But if what has been said is what is potential, in the

sense that it is a necessary accompaniment to it, it is clear that it cannot
be true to say that such-and-such is possible, but will not be the case (as
a result of which statement, things incapable of being the case would
disappear); I mean, for instance, the case of someone who would say
that the diagonal of a square is capable of being measured, even though
it will not be measured-someone, that is, who does not reckon there
to be anything impossible-because nothing prevents anything from
being capable of being or becoming so, that is not or is not about to be
7 Scholars worry about whether this is meant to be a definition of potency, but that
has been given already as "a source of change in something else, or in the same thing
as other." The point of this sentence is to emphasize the conditional relation such a
source has to that of which it is the source.
1 04 7 b 1 0 so. And that is a necessary consequence of the things set down, if we

also assume that, if what is not the case but is possible were to be or
come about, there would be nothing impossible; but this will turn out
to be impossible, since the diagonal is incapable of being measured.
For the false and the impossible are not the same thing; for that you
are now standing is false, but not impossible.
At the same time, it is also clear that, if it is necessary for B to be the
case when A is, it is also necessary for B to be capable of being the case
when A is capable of being the case; for if it is not necessary that B be
capable of being so, nothing prevents it from being incapable of being
so. Now let A be possible. Accordingly, at the time when A would be
capable of being the case, if A were established, nothing incapable of
1 047b 20 being the case would result; but B would then necessarily be the case.
But itwas taken to be impossible. So let it be impossible. But now if B
is incapable of being the case, A is necessarily also impossible. But the
first one was taken to be impossible, and therefore the second is too.
Therefore, if A is to be possible, B will also be possible, so long as they
are so related that when A is the case, B necessarily is too. So if, when
A and B are so related, B is not possible, in that case, A and B will not
have the relation that was assumed; and if, when A is possible, B must
necessarily be possible, then if A is the case, B must necessarily also
be the case. For B' s necessarily being capable of being the case when
A is possible means, if A is the case, when and in the way that it was
1 047b 30 capable of being the case, B also has to be the case then and in that
way.
Chapter 5 Of all potencies, since some are innate, such as the

senses, while others come by habit, such as that of flute playing, and
others by learning, such as that of the arts, some, those that are by habit
and reasoning, need to have previous activity, while the others that are
not of that kind, and apply to being acted upon, do not need it. And
1 048a since what is potential is capable of something, at some time, in some
way, and all the other things that need to be added in its delineation,
and some things are capable of causing motion in accordance with
reason and their potencies include reason, while other things are
umeasoning and their potencies are irrational, the former must be in
things with souls, but the latter in both kinds of beings; with potencies
of the latter sort, it is necessary, whenever a thing that is active and one
that is passive in the sense in which they are potential come near each
other, that the one act and the other be acted upon, but with the former
sort this is not necessary. For with all these unreasoning potencies, one
is productive of one effect, but those others are productive of contrary
effects, so that each would at the same time do contrary things; but
that is impossible. It is necessary, therefore, that there be something 1 048a 1 0
else that is governing; by this I mean desire or choice. For whatever
something chiefly desires is what it will do whenever what it is capable
of is present and it approaches its passive object; and so everything
that has a potency in accordance with reason must do this whenever
it desires that of which it has the potency and in the way that it has
it, and it has it when the passive object is present and is in a certain
condition. If this is not so, it will not be capable of acting (for it is not
necessary to add to the description "when nothing outside prevents"
since it has the potency in the sense that it is a potency of acting, and
this is not in every situation but when things are in certain conditions,
among which conditions the outside obstacles will be eliminated, since 1 048a 20
some of the things in the description remove them); and so, even if one
wishes and desires to do two things at the same time or to do contrary
things, one will not do them, for one does not have the potency for
them in that way, and there is no potency for doing them at the same
time, since a thing will do the things it is capable of in the way it is
capable of them.
Chapter 6 Since what concerns the kind of potency that corre

sponds to motion has been discussed, let us make distinctions about
being-at-work, to mark out both what it is and what sort of thing it is.
For that which is potential will also be clear at the same time to those
who make these distinctions, since we speak of the potential not only
as that which is of such a nature as to move some other thing or be
moved by something else, either simply or in a certain respect, but 1 048a 30
also in another way, and it is because we are inquiring after that other
meaning that we went through this one. Now being-at-work is some
thing's being-present not in the way that we speak of as in potency;
and we speak of as being in potency, for example, Hermes in a block
of wood or a half line in the whole, because they can be separated
out, or someone who knows, even when he is not contemplating, if
he is capable of contemplating. The other way these things are present
is in activity. And what we mean to say is clear by looking directly
at particular examples, nor is it necessary to look for a definition of
1 74 Book IX (Book 0) Chapter 6
everything, but one can also see at one glance, by means of analogy,
1 048b that which is as the one building is to the one who can build, and the
awake to the asleep, and the one seeing to the one whose eyes are shut
but who has sight, and what has been formed out of material to the
material, and what is perfected to what is incomplete. And let being
at-work be determined by one part of each distinction, and what is
potential by the other. But not all things that are said to be in activity
are alike, other than by analogy: as this is in respect to or in relation to
that, so is this thing here in respect to or in relation to that thing there.
For some of them are related in the manner of a motion to a potency,
others in the manner of thinghood to some materiaLS
1 048b 1 0 Butitis in a different way that the infinite and the void, and anything
else of that kind, are said to be in potency or in activity, as opposed
to most of the things that have being, such as whatever sees or walks
or is seen. For the latter admit of simply being true at some time (for
in one sense something is a thing seen because it is being seen, in
another sense because it is capable of being seen), but the infinite is
not potential in the sense that it is going to be actively separate, except
in knowledge. For the fact that an infinite division does not come to
an end permits this sort of being-at-work to be in potency, though not
to be separate.
And since, of the actions that do have limits, none of them is itself an
1 048b 20 end, but it is among things that approach an end (such as losing weight,
for the thing that is losing weight, when it is doing so, is in motion in
that way, although that for the sake of which the motion takes place is
not present), this is not an action, or at any rate not a complete one; but
that in which the end is present is an action. For instance, one sees and
is at the same time in a state of having seen, understands and is at the
same time in a state of having understood, or thinks contemplatively
and is at the same time in a state of having thought contemplatively,
but one does not learn while one is at the same time in a state of having
learned, or get well while in a state of having gotten well. One does
8 This is the reason being-at-work is not definable. Potency is clearest to us in the

capacity for motion or change, but motion itself is defined as a form of being-at
work-staying-complete. But being-at-work is usually reserved for the activities that are
not motions. In Aristotle's discourse, energeia is an ultimate explanatory term, not
itself explainable by anything simpler or clearer, but Aristotle has chosen the word to
carry meaning on its own, and translating it as "actuality" kills it.
Book IX (Book E>) Chapter 7 1 75
live well at the same time one is in a state of having lived well, and one
is happy at the same time one is in a state of having been happy. If this
were not so, the action would have to stop at some time, just as when
one is losing weight, but as things are it does not stop, but one is living
and is in a state of having lived. And it is appropriate to call the one
sort of action motion, and the other being-at-work. For every motion is
incomplete: losing weight, learning, walking, house-building. These 1 048b 30
are motions, and are certainly incomplete. For one is not walking and
at the same time in a state of having walked, nor building a house and
at the same time in a state of having built a house, nor becoming and
in a state of having become, nor moving and in a state of having been
moved, but the two are different; but one has seen and at the same time
is seeing the same thing, and is contemplating and has contemplated
the same thing. And I call this sort of action a being-at-work, and that
sort a motion. So that which is by way of being-at-work, both what it is
and of what sort, let it be evident to us from these examples and those
of this kind.
Chapter 7 Now when each thing is in potency and when not must
be distinguished, since it is not the case at just any time whatever. For 1 049a
example, is earth potentially a human being? Or is it not, but rather is
so only when it has already become germinal fluid, and perhaps not
even then? Then it would be just as not everything can be healed, by
either medical skill or chance, but there is something that is potential,
and this is what is healthy in potency. But the mark of what comes to
be in complete activity out of what has being in potency, as a result of
thinking, is that, whenever it is desired it comes about when nothing
outside prevents it, and there, in the thing healed, whenever nothing
in it prevents it. And it is similar too with a potential house; if nothing
in this or in the material for becoming a house stands in the way, 1 049a 1 0
and there is nothing that needs to have been added or taken away or
changed, this is potentially a house, and it is just the same with all
other things of which the source of coming into being is external. And
of all those things in which coming into being is by means of something
they have in themselves, those are in potency which will be on their
own if nothing outside blocks their way; for instance, the semen is not
yet potential (since it has to be in something else, and to change), but
whenever, by virtue of its own source of motion, it is already such,
in this condition it is from that point on in potency, though in that
previous condition it has need of another source, just like earth that is
not yet potentially a statue (since once it changes it will be bronze).
And it seems that what we speak of as being not this but made
1 049a 20 of this-for example a box is not wood but wooden, and the wood
is not earth but earthy, and the earth in turn, if it is not some other
thing but just made-of-that-the thing next following is always simply
potentially the one that precedes it. For instance, the box is not made of
earth, nor is it earth, but is wooden, since this is potentially a box, and
the material for a box is this, simply so for a box considered simply,
or this particular wood for this particular box. But if something is
the first thing that is no longer said to be made-of-this in reference to
any other thing, this will be the first material; for instance, if earth is
airy, while air is not fire but fiery, then fire is the first material, if it is
not a this. For those things to which something is attributed, that is,
underlying things, differ in this way: by being or not being a this. For
example, a human being is something that underlies its attributes,9
1 049a 30 and is both a body and a soul, and the attribute is cultivated or pale
(and when cultivation has come to be in it, it is said to be not cultivation
but cultivated, and a human being is not paleness but pale, and is not
motion or the act of walking but is something that moves or walks, like
the thing that is said to be made-of-that), and so the last of the things
that underlie something in this way is an independent thing. But the
last of those things that do not underlie in that way, but to which the
thing attributed is some form or a this, is material and its thinghood is
1 049b of a material sort. And it turns out rightly that of-that-sort applies to
material and to attributes, since both are indeterminate.
So when something should be spoken of as potential and when not
have been said.10
9 To underlie is a synonym for having something attributed. It is not these two notions
that are being distinguished, but two ways that a thing can underlie what is attributed
to it.
1 0 It is now fully explicit that Aristotle does not use the word potential to speak of
everything that is possible. It is the immediately neighboring material, ready to pass
into something when nothing prevents it, if it is natural, or when the artisan wishes
and nothing prevents it, if it is artificial, that has a potency. Aristotle takes seriously
the testimony of sculptors that Hermes is in the stone or the wood (1 048a 34-36 and
1 01 7b 1 -8); that is, the material even of art is not infinitely moldable by an artist's
creativity, but is a contributing source in its own right to the product that comes of
it. In nature, the potency of material is the whole story, so much so that an internal
potency is what Aristotle means by nature.
Chapter 8 And since the various ways in which something is said

to take precedence have been distinguished,ll it is clear that being
at-work takes precedence over potency. And I mean that it takes
precedence not only over potency as defined, which means a source
of change in another thing or in the same thing as other, but over
every source of motion or rest in general. For nature too is in the same
general class as potency, since it is a source of motion, though not 1 049b 1 0
in something else but in a thing itself as itself. Now over everything
of that kind, being-at-work takes precedence both in articulation and
in thinghood, but in time, there is a sense in which it does and a
sense in which it does not. That it takes precedence in articulation is
obvious (for it is by admitting of being at work that the primary sort of
potency is potential-! mean, say; that the one with the house-building
power is the one who is capable of building a house, the one with the
power of sight is the one capable of seeing, and the thing with the
power of being seen is the thing capable of being seen, and the same
description also applies to the rest, so that the statement of the being
at-work must be present beforehand, and the knowledge of it must
precede the knowledge of the potency). In time it takes precedence in
this way: a thing that is the same in form, though not numerically the
same, that is at work, takes precedence. By this I mean that, over this
particular human being that is already present in activity; or over this 1 049b 20
particular grain or this particular thing that is seeing, the material or
the seed or the one capable of seeing takes precedence in time, which
are potentially a human being or grain or one who is seeing, but are
not yet so in activity; but preceding these in time, there are other things
that are at work, out of which these particular ones were generated,
for what is at work always comes into being from what is in potency,
by the action of what is at work, a human being from a human being,
say, or someone cultivated by the action of someone cultivated-some
mover is always first, and what causes motion is already at work. And
it was said in the chapters about thinghood that everything that comes
into being becomes something from something, and by the action of
something which is the same in form.12
1 1 See Bk. v, Ch. 1 1 , and 1 028a 33-35.

1 2 For the way that this is true of artifacts as well as of natural beings, see especially
1 032b 1 1 -1 5.
1 049b 30 And this is why it seems to be impossible to be a house-builder if

one has not built any houses, or a harpist if one has not played the
harp at all; for the one learning to play the harp learns to play the
harp by playing the harp, and similarly with others who learn things.
And from this there arises the sophistical objection that someone
who does not have knowledge would be doing the things that the
knowledge is about, since the one learning does not have knowledge.
But since something of what comes into being has always already
come into being, and in general something of what is in motion has
1 050a always already been moved (which is made clear in the writings about
motion13), presumably the one who is learning must also already
have something of knowledge. But then it is also clear from the same
considerations that being-at-work takes precedence in this way too
over potency, in respect to becoming and time.
But surely it takes precedence in thinghood too, first because things
that are later in coming into being take precedence in form and in
thinghood (as a man does over a boy; or a human being over the
germinal fluid, since the one already has the form, and the other does
not), and also because everything that comes into being goes up to
a source and an end (since that for the sake of which something is
is a source, and coming into being is for the sake of the end), but
the being-at-work is an end, and it is for the enjoyment of this that
1 050a 1 0 the potency is taken on. For it is not in order that they may have the
power of sight that animals see, but they have sight in order to see,
and similarly too, people have the house-building power in order that
they may build houses, and the contemplative power in order that
they may contemplate; but they do not contemplate in order that they
may have the contemplative power, unless they are practicing, and
these people are not contemplating other than in a qualified sense, or
else they would have no need to be practicing contemplating.
What's more, material is in potency because it goes toward a form;
but whenever it is at work, then it is in that form. And it is similar in
1 3 In Bk. VI, Ch. 6, of the Physics, Aristotle proves that there is no first instant of
motion or change. There is a more directly relevant passage in Book VII of that work,
247b 1 -248a 9, in which he argues that knowledge is always already active in us,
though obscured by distracting disorderly motions. The primary kind of learning is
like. recollecting, an emerging habit of concentrating on what is already going on in
us.
Book IX (Book E>) Chapter 8 1 79
other cases, even those of which motion is itself the end, and that is why
teachers display a student at work, thinking that they are delivering
up the end, and nature acts in a similar way.14 For if things did not
happen this way, they would be like the Hermes of Pauson, since it 1 050a 20
would be unclear whether the knowledge were inside or outside, just
as with that figure. For the end is work, and the work is a being-at
work, and this is why the phrase being-at-work is meant by reference
to work and extends to being-at-work-staying-complete.15
But since the putting to use of some things is ultimate (as seeing
is in the case of sight, in which nothing else apart from this comes
about from the work of sight), but from some things something comes
into being (as a house, as well as the activity of building, comes from
the house-building power), yet still the putting to use is no less an
end in the former sort, and in the latter sort it is more an end than
the potency is; for the activity of building takes place within the thing
that is being built, and it comes into being and is at the same time as
the house. So of those things from which there is something else apart 1 050a 30
from the putting-to-use that comes into being, the being-at-work is in
the thing that is made (as the activity of building is in the thing built
and the activity of weaving in the thing woven, and similarly with the
rest, and in general motion is in the thing moved); but of those things
which have no other work besides their being-at-work, the being-at
work of them is present in themselves (as seeing is in the one seeing
and contemplation in the one contemplating, and life is in the soul,
and hence happiness too, since it is a certain sort of life). And so it 1 050b
is clear that thinghood and form are being-at-work.16 So as a result
of this argument it is obvious that being-at-work takes precedence
1 4 How does nature display that a squirrel has reached the completion for the sake
of which it exists? In the spectacle of the squirrel at work being a squirrel.
1 5 That is, beings do not just happen to perform strings of isolated deeds, but
their activity forms a continuous state of being-at-work, in which they achieve
the completion that makes them what they are. Aristotle is arguing that the very
thinghood of a thing is not what might be hidden inside it, but a definite way of
being unceasingly at-work, that makes it a thing at all and the kind of thing it is.
1 6 This is the next-to-final conclusion Aristotle reaches about being. The following
sentence is followed to a conclusion in Book XII, where the highest source of being is
uncovered.
over potency in thinghood, and as we have been saying, one being-at

work always comes before another in time until one always reaches
the being-at-work of something that first causes motion.
But being-at-work takes precedence in an even more governing
way; for everlasting things take precedence in thinghood over de
structible ones, and nothing that is in potency is everlasting. And the
reason is this: every potency belongs at once to a pair of contradic
1 050b 1 0 tory things,17 for what is not capable of being present cannot belong
to anything, but everything that is potential admits of not being at
work. Therefore, what is capable of being admits both of being and
of not being, and so the same thing is capable both of being and of
not being. But what is capable of not being admits of not being, and
what admits of not being is destructible, either simply or in that same
respect in which it is spoken of as admitting of not being, either at a
place or with respect to a size or to being of a certain sort; but what
admits of not being with respect to thinghood is destructible simply.
Therefore nothing that is simply indestructible is simply in potency
(though nothing prevents it from being potentially in some particular
respect, such as of a certain sort or at a certain place), and so all of
them are at work. And none of the things that are by necessity is in
potency (and yet these are primary; since if these were not, nothing
1 050b 20 would be), nor is motion, if there is any everlasting one; and if there
is anything everlastingly in motion, it is not in potency to be moved
other than from somewhere to somewhere (and nothing prevents ma
terial for this from belonging to it), and this is why the sun and the
stars and the whole heaven are always at work and there is no fear
lest they ever stop, which those who write about nature do fear. Nor
do they grow weary in doing this, since for them motion does not
concern the potency for a pair of contradictory things, as it does for
destructible things,18 so that the continuation of the motion would be
1 7 Someone who has one of the potencies that involve reason is capable of a pair of
contrary effects, which lie at opposite ends of a spectrum of possibilities, as a doctor
can cause sickness as well as health; but every potency is capable of the contradictory
effects of coming to be at work or failing to do so. Fire cannot cool anything, but
external causes can prevent it from heating something.
1 8 The everlasting motions of the stars are understood as circular, while motions on
earth are not capable of continuing indefinitely without reversing, which means they
must sometimes be going against the grain of the moving thing or the medium in
which it moves. See Physics Bk. VIII, Ch. 8.
wearisome; for the cause of this is that the thinghood of destructible

things is comprised of material and potency.
And things that undergo change, such as earth and fire, mimic
the indestructible things, since they too are always at work, for they 1 050b 30
have motion in virtue of themselves and in themselves. But the other
potencies, from which these have been distinguished, are all capable
of contradictory things (for what is capable of moving something in
this way is also capable of moving it not in this way); those at least
that result from reason are of that kind, but with the irrational ones,
the same potencies will be capable of contradictory effects in the sense
of their being present or not. If, therefore, there are some such natures
or independent things of the sort that people speak of in arguments
about the forms, there would be something much more knowing than
knowledge itself, and much more in motion than motion itself, since 1 051 a
those things would have more the character of being-at-work, while
the things they speak of are potencies for those.l9 So it is clear that
being-at-work takes precedence over potency, and also over any source
of change.
Chapter 9 And that being-at-work is a better and more honorable

thing than a potency for something worth choosing, is clear from these
considerations. For whatever is spoken of as being potential is itself
capable of opposite effects; for instance, the same thing that is said to be
potentially healthy is also, and at the same time, potentially sick, since
the same potency belongs to being healthy and to running down, or to
being at rest and to being in motion, or to building up and to knocking
down, or to being built and to falling down. So being, potentially, 1 05 1 a 1 0
opposite things belongs to something at one time, but the opposite
things are incapable of belongmg to It at the same time, and the ways
of being at work are incapable of being present at the same time (such
1 9 As always, one must distinguish a working out of an understanding of forms from

a rejection of them. It is said in Plato's Sophist (248E-249B) that motion, life, and
soul must belong to the forms, but this is never pursued in the dialogues. In Bk. I,
Ch. 9, above (99 1 a 23-24), Aristotle asked what it is that is at work, causing things
to participate in the forms. He has just said, at 1 050b 1 -2, that the form is a being
at-work. And the usual way that commentators speak of a "Platonic" form that is
separate from the particular things, and an "Aristotelian" form that exists only in the
particulars, makes no sense either, since Aristotle has said that the form always pre
exists anything that comes into being (e. g., at 1 034b 8), and since from 1 043b 1 4
on, this inquiry has been on the level of form alone.
as being healthy and being run down), and so one of these must be
the good one,20 while the being-potential is equally both or neither;
therefore the being-at-work is better. And in the case of bad things, it
is necessary that the completion and being-at-work be worse than the
potency, since the potential thing is itself capable of both opposites.
Therefore it is clear that there is nothing bad apart from particular
things, since the bad is by nature secondary to potency. Therefore
1 05 1 a 20 among things that are from the beginning and are everlasting, there is
nothing bad, erring, or corruptible (since corruption is also one of the
.
bad things).21
And geometrical constructions are discovered by means of activity,
since it is by dividing up the figures that people discover them. lf the
figures were already divided, the constructions would be evident, but
as it is, the constructions are present in the figures in potency. Why; say,
does a triangle have two right angles? Because the angles around one
point are equal to two right angles. So if the base were drawn beyond
the side, this would be clear immediately to the one who looks at it.22
And why is the angle in a semicircle always right? Because three lines
are equal, the two halves of the base and the one erected from the
center at right angles, which is clear to one who looks at it, who knows
the other proposition just mentioned. And so it is clear that the things
1 05 1 a 30 that are in the figures in potency are discovered by being drawn into
activity, and the cause is that contemplative thinking is the being-at
work of them; therefore the potency comes from a being-at-work, and
for this reason it is only those who make a construction who know it
2 0 The first sentence of the chapter eliminates indifferent things from consideration.
So in the realm of things worth choosing, opposite things must have opposite weight
with respect to choice.
21 The words good, bad, better, and worse in this paragraph do not have a moral
sense, as the examples show. There is nothing immoral about being sick, or about a
house's falling down. These are things that are bad for the wholeness and characteristic
being-at-work of some sort of being. Nature or art gives the standard of goodness.
Moral goodness is derivative from goodness in this broader sense, since it is one of
the things that fosters the emergence and well-being of human nature.
22 The construction may be found in Euclid's Elements Book I, Proposition 32, but
a second line has to be drawn to complete it. The proposition mentioned next is
in Euclid (Book Ill, Proposition 3 1 ) but is not approached there in Aristotle's way, by
means of the isosceles right triangle. In both cases, Aristotle gives too little information
for a proof, but enough for someone fiddling with the figure to find a proof.
Book IX (Book El) Chapter 1 0 1 83
(since the being-at-work that belongs to a number is later in coming

into being).23
Chapter 10 And since being and not being are meant in one sense
by reference to the various ways of attributing being, and in another by
reference to the potency or being-at-work of these or their opposites, 1 05 1 b
but the most governing sense is the true or the false, and since this as
applied to particular things depends on combining and separating, in
such a way that one who thinks that what is separated is separated and
what is combined is combined thinks truly, but one who thinks these
things to be opposite to the way the things are thinks falsely, when is
what is spoken of as truth or falsity present or not present? For it is
necessary to examine in what way we mean this. For you are not pale
because we think truly that you are pale, but rather it is because you
are pale that we who say so speak the truth.24 So if some things are
always combined and incapable of being separated, while others are 1 05 1 b 1 0
always separate and incapable of being combined, then others admit
of opposites (for being something is being-combined and being-one,
while not being it is not being combined but being more than one) .
Concerning the ones that admit of opposites, then, the same opinion
and the same statement come to be false and true, and it is possible for
someone at one time to think truly and at another time to think falsely;
but about the ones that are incapable of being otherwise, nothing comes
to be at one time true, at another time false, but the same things are
always true and false.
2 3 The last sentence is difficult to translate. The thought seems to be this: Mathemat
ical things, according to Aristotle (1 061 a 2 9 and following), depend upon an act of
abstraction, and this is true of them alone. Therefore they have no potency striving to
emerge if nothing prevents it, and no being-at-work except in and dependent upon
the activity of an intellect. Later thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes (e. g., in On Body,
Ch. 1 , Sec. 5) say that we know only what we make, and give mathematical examples.
Aristotle agrees in the case of mathematics, but otherwise believes that the object of
knowledge is independent and at work upon the knower.
24 This is a dialectical step beyond what is said in Bk. VI, Ch. 4. Being as the true was
there set aside as not the governing sense of being, since it belonged only to thinking
and didn't reveal any new kind of being. Books VII-IX have revealed the being of
everything in our sensory experience, and the dependence of it all upon the being
at-work of forms to make things whole. But that leads to the question of how being
should be understood when there is no division into "categories," no potency, and no
wholeness out of parts. This is a shift to a more primitive and original sense of truth as
emergence out of hiddenness, which has been anticipated at the end of Bk. II, Ch. 1 .
1 84 Book IX (Book E>) Chapter 1 0
But now for things that are not compound, what is being or not
being, and the true and the false? For the thing is not a compound, so
1 051 b 20 that it would be when it is combined and not be if it is separated, like the
white on a block of wood or the incommensurability of a diagonal; and
the true and the false will not still be present in a way similar to those
things. Rather, just as the true is not the same thing for these things, so
too being is not the same for them, but the true or false is this: touching
and affirming something uncompounded is the true (for affirming is
not the same thing as asserting a predication), while not touching is
being ignorant (for it is not possible to be deceived about what it is,
except incidentally). And it is similar with what concerns independent
things that are not compound, since it is not possible to be deceived
about them; and they are all at work, not in potency, for otherwise
they would be coming into being and passing away, but the very thing
that is does not come to be or pass away, since it would have to come
1 051 b 30 from something. So it is not possible to be deceived about anything the
very being of which is being-at-work, but one either grasps or does not
grasp it in contemplative thinking; about them, inquiring after what
they are is asking whether they are of certain kinds or not.
So being in the sense of the true, and not-being in the sense of the
false, in one way is: if something is combined, it is true, and if it is not
combined, it is false. But in one way it is: if something is, it is present
1 052a in a certain way, and if it is not present in that way, it is not. The true
is the contemplative knowing of these things, and there is no falsity,
nor deception, but only ignorance, and not the same sort of thing as
blindness; for blindness would be as if someone were not to have the
contemplative power at all. And it is clear also that about motionless
things there can be no deception about when they are so, if one grasps
that they are motionless. For if one supposes that the triangle does not
change, one will not think that it sometimes has two right angles and
sometimes does not (for it would be changing); but it is possible that
one such thing be a certain way and another not (for instance, that no
even number is prime), or that some are and some are not. But about
1 052a 1 0 a single number, not even this is possible, since one could no longer
suppose that one thing is one way and another not, but one thinks
truly or falsely that something is always a certain way.
Book X (Book I)
Wholeness1
Chapter 1 That oneness is meant in more than one way has been 1 052a 1 5
said before, in the distinctions made about the various senses in which
things are meant; and though it has more meanings, when the ways it
is meant are gathered under headings, there are four senses in which
something is said to be one primarily and in its own right, rather than
incidentally. For oneness belongs to what is continuous, either simply
or, especially, by nature, and not by contact or by a binding cord (and 1 052a 20
among these that is more so one and is more primary of which the
motion is more indivisible and more simple); and it belongs still more
to what is whole and has some form and look, especially if something
is of that sort by nature and not by force, as those things are that are so
by means of glue or bolts or being tied with a cord, but rather has in
itself that which is responsible for its being continuous. And something
is of this sort if its motion is one and indivisible in place and time; and
so it is clear that, if something has a source of motion that moves it in
the primary kind of the primary class of motions (by which I mean the
circular type of change of place), this is one magnitude in the primary
sense. So some things are one in this way; insofar as they are continuous
or whole, but others are one because the articulation of them is one, 1 052a 3 0
and of this sort are those things of which the thinking is one, and this in
turn is of this sort if it is indivisible, and an act of thinking is indivisible
if it is of something indivisible in form or in number. Accordingly, a
particular thing is one by being indivisible in number, but that which is
one by means of intelligibility and knowledge is indivisible in form, so
that what is responsible for the oneness of independent things would
be one in the primary sense. Oneness, then, is meant in this many ways,
the naturally continuous, the whole, the particular, and the universal,Z
1 The topic of the book moves from oneness to manyness to contrariety in general.
The bulk of it thus supplies what is called for at 1 003b 35-1 004a 2, as germane to
first philosophy but not central to it. Dialectically, though, its primary role is as a link
between Books IX and XII, since its first chapter establishes the unity of anything that
has a form as that of which the thinking is one, and its second chapter points on to
the being that is the source of such wholeness. This title for Book X supplied by the
translator.
2 This last kind of oneness has to refer to what has just been said to be indivisible in
1 86 Book X (Book I) Chapter 1
1 052b and each of these is one by being indivisible, either with respect to
motion, or to an act of thinking, or in articulation.
But it is necessary to notice that one must not take the sorts of things
that are spoken of as one as being meant in the same way as what it is
to be one, or what the articulation of it is. For oneness is meant in all the
ways mentioned, and each thing to which any of these ways belongs
will be one; but being-one will sometimes belong to one of these, and
sometimes to something else, which is even closer to the name, though
these four senses are closer to the meaning of it. The same thing would
also be the case with "element" and "cause," if one had to speak about
them, distinguishing the things to which the words are applied, and
1 052b 1 0 giving a definition of the words. For there is a sense in which fire is
an element (though presumably in its own right the element is the
indeterminate or something else of that sort), and a sense in which it
is not; for being fire is not the same thing as being an element, but as
a certain thing and a nature, fire is an element, and the word indicates
that this attribute goes along with it because something is made out of
it as its first constituent. And it is that way also with " cause" and "one"
and all such things, and this is why being one is being indivisible, just
exactly what it is to be a this, separate on its own in either place or
form or thinking, or to be both whole and indivisible, but especially
to be the primary measure of each class of things, and, in the most
governing sense, of the class of things with quantity, for it has come
from there to apply to other things.
1 052b 20 For a measure is that by which the amount of something is known;
and it is either by a one or by a number that an amount is known,
insofar as it is an amount, while every number is known by a one, so
that every amount, insofar as it is an amount, is known by that which
is one, and that by which amounts are known first of all is the one
itself; hence oneness is the source of number as number. And based
on that, measure is spoken of in other areas too as that by which each
form and the object of a single act of thinking, and to have as its primary instance
that which makes an independent thing one. It cannot, therefore, be a universal in
the sense that corresponds to a general class, a common property, or anything that
is one but applied to many things. Book VII, Ch. 1 3, eliminated the universal in that
sense from consideration among the causes and sources of being as such. Such a
cause must be a this and separate, independent of our thinking, and universal only
in the sense that it is responsible for all the particulars of some definite kind. For this
sense of "universal," see 1 026a 29-32.
Book X (Book I) Chapter 1 1 87
thing is primarily known, and of each sort of thing, the measure is a

one, in length, in breadth, in depth, in weight, in speed (for weight
and speed are applied in common to contraries, since each of them
is meant in two ways, as weight is applied both to that which has
any downward inclination whatever and to that which has an excess
of downward inclination, and speed is applied both to that which has 1 052b 30
any motion whatever, since it has some speed, and to that which has an
excess of motion, and even the lightest weight has some weight). In all
these cases, the measure and source is something one and indivisible,
since even among lines, one uses the foot as though it were indivisible.
For everywhere, people seek as a measure something that is one and
indivisible, and this is what is simple either in kind or in amount. So
wherever it seems not to be possible to take away or add anything,
there is an exact measure, and that is why the measure of number is 1 053a
the most exact, since people set down the numerical unit as indivisible
by anything. And in other cases, the measures are imitations of this
sort of measure, for from a mile or a ton, or always from some very
large thing, it escapes notice if something has been added or taken
away, more than from something smaller; and so the first thing which,
according to perception, does not admit of being added to or subtracted
from, all people make into a measure, of wet things or dry things or
weight or extent, and then think they know the amount of something,
whenever they know it by this measure.
And people measure even motion by the simple motion and by the
fastest (since this takes the least time), and this is why in astronomy 1 053a 1 0
something that is one in this way is a source and measure (for people
assume that the motion of the heaven is uniform and fastest, and judge
the others in relation to it), and in music it is the quarter tone, because
it is the smallest interval, and in speech it is the letter. And each of these
is one in the same way, not in a single sense common to them all, but
just in the way mentioned. But the measure is not always numerically
one, but sometimes more than one, as there are two types of quarter
tone, distinct not for hearing but in their ratios, and the sounds by
which we measure speech are more than one, and the diagonal and
side of a square have two measures, and similarly with all magnitudes.
So in this way the measure of everything is what is one, because we
recognize what the thinghood of a thing consists of by dividing it either
in amount or inform. And for this reason the one is indivisible, because 1 053a 20
the first thing by which each kind is known is indivisible, but they are
not all indivisible in the same way, for instance a foot in length and
a unit in arithmetic, but the latter is not divisible in any way, while
the former presents itself among things indivisible as far as perception
is concerned, as was said before, since presumably every continuous
thing is divisible.
And a measure is always the same kind of thing as what it measures,
for the measure of magnitudes is a magnitude, and in particular, that
of length is a length, of breadth a breadth, of spoken sounds a spoken
sound, of weight a weight, and of numerical units a numerical unit.
And it is necessary to put the last example this way, and not to say that
a number is the measure of numbers, though that would have been
appropriate if it were analogous to the other cases; but one would not
be regarding it in an analogous way, but rather just as if one were to
1 053a 30 regard units, and not a unit, as the measure of units, since a number is
a multitude of units.
And we speak of knowledge or sense perception as a measure of
things for the same reason, because we recognize something by means
of them, although they are measured more than they measure. But
what happens to us is just as if, after someone else had measured
us, we recognized how big we are by the ruler's having been held
· up to us so many times. And Protagoras says a human being is the
1 053b measure of all things, as if he were saying that a knower or perceiver
were the measure, and these because the one has knowledge and the
other perception, which we say are the measures of their objects. So
while saying nothing, these people appear to be saying something
extraordinary.
So it is clear that being one, for someone defining it most strictly in
its literal sense, is being a certain kind of measure, of an amount in the
most governing sense of oneness, and next of a kind; and something
will be of this sort if it is indivisible in amount, and something else if it
is indivisible in kind. For this reason what is one is what is indivisible,
either simply or in the respect in which it is one.
Chapter 2 As for the thinghood and nature of what is being

1 053b 1 0 inquired about, and its manner of being, we made an approach in the
discussion of impasses to the question what oneness is, and how one
ought to understand it, whether as though the one itself is a particular
independent thing, as the Pythagoreans said in earlier times and Plato
later, or whether instead some nature underlies it, and it ought in some
way to be explained in more familiar terms and more in the manner

of those who write about nature; for a certain one of them says that
oneness is love, another that it is air, and still another that it is the
unbounded}
Now if none of the universals can be an independent thing, as was
said in the chapters about thinghood and about being, since not even
being itself is an independent thing as though it were some one thing
capable of having being apart from the many beings (since it is common
to them), other than solely as a thing attributed to them, it is clear that 1 053b 20
oneness is not a universal either; for being and oneness are predicated
in the most universal way of all things. And so, general classes are not
particular natures and independent things separate from the rest, nor
could oneness be a general class, for the same reasons on account of
which neither being nor thinghood can be a general class of things.4
What's more, what is true about oneness must hold true in a
similar way for all things; and being and oneness are meant in equally
many ways. Therefore, since among qualities there is a certain kind
of oneness and some nature that is one, and similarly also among
quantities, it is clear that also in general one must inquire after what
oneness is, just as also what being is, since it is not sufficient just to
say that it is itself its own nature. And surely among colors what is
one is a color, such as white, and then the other colors clearly come to 1 053b 30
be out of this and black, black being the deprivation of white just as
darkness is the deprivation of light; and so, if beings were colors, the
things that are would be a certain kind of number, but of what? It is
obvious that they would be a number of colors, and oneness would
be a certain kind of unity, such as whiteness. And similarly; if beings
were melodies, they would be a certain number, though in this case
a number of quarter tones, but the thinghood of them would not be
a number; and oneness would be something of which the thinghood
was not oneness but the quarter tone. And similarly again in the case of 1 054a
spoken utterances, beings would be a number of letters, and oneness
3 In the first case (Empedocles), love is the active source that makes things combine
into one, while in the next two (Anaximenes and Anaximander) what is named is the
one material source out of which all things arise.
4 The argument for this, at 998b 22-28, is put in a technical way, but amounts to
this: an all-comprehensive class could not have subclasses, since they would have to
be distinguished by having or not having some characteristic outside the original class.
would be the vowel. And if things were straight-sided figures, they

would be a number of shapes, and oneness would be the triangle.
And the same account applies also to the other classes of things, so
that if also among attributes and among qualities and among quantities
and among motions there are numbers and something that is one, and
in all instances it is the case both that the number is a number of
something and that oneness is some particular one thing, and oneness
itself is not the thinghood of it, then it must also be the same way
with independent things, since what is true about oneness must hold
1 054a 1 0 true in a similar way about all things. It is clear, then, that oneness in
every class of things is some particular nature, and that oneness itself
is not the nature of any of them, but just as among colors one must
look for one color that is itself what is one, so too in thinghood, one
independent thing is oneness itsel£5; and that oneness in a certain way
means the same thing as being, is clear from the fact that it follows
along equally through the ways being is attributed, and is not in any
one of them (for instance, it is not what anything is, nor of-what-sort
anything is, but stands similarly toward them just as being does), and
from the fact that no other thing is predicated in "one human being"
over and above what is predicated in "human being" Gust as being is
not something over and above what and of-what-sort and how-much a
thing is), or in "being one" over and above being any particular thing.
1 054a 20 Chapter 3 The one and the many are opposed in more than
one way; one of these ways being that of oneness and multitude as
indivisible and divisible; for what is either divided or divisible is
spoken of as a certain multitude, but what is either indivisible or not
divided as one. So since oppositions are of four kinds, and of this pair
one of the opposites is referred to as lacking something, these would
be contraries, and not opposed as contradictories or as what are called
relative terms. 6 What is one is named from its contrary and made clear
by it, the indivisible by the divisible, since what is multiple is more
5 just as "being as being" does not refer to some lowest common denominator of all
beings, but to that which pre-eminently is and is the source of all other being, oneness
itself is not a common universal element in all things that are whole, but is that being
that is pre-eminently unified and is the source of all other wholeness.
6 See 1 01 8a 20--2 1 . Contrariety is one sort of lacking and having, in which one thing
completely lacks what the other has. See also 1 01 1 b 1 8-1 9 and 1 055b 27-28.
perceptible, and the divisible more so than the indivisible, so that, on

account of perception, multitude takes precedence, in its articulation,
over what is indivisible. But as we diagrammed in the reckoning of 1 054a 30
the contraries? with the one belong the terms same, like, and equal,
but with multitude the terms other, unlike, and unequal.
Since the same is meant in more than one way, in one way we
sometimes speak of what is the same in number, but we say it in
another sense if things are one in meaning as well as in number, as you
are one with yourself in both form and material, and in another again if
the articulation of the primary thinghood of things is one, for instance 1 054b
in the way equal straight lines are the same, or equal and equiangular
quadrilaterals, and still more things-but in these equality is oneness.
Things are alike if, not being simply the same, nor without difference
in their composite thinghood, they are the same in form, just as a larger
square is like a smaller one, and unequal lines are alike, since these are
similar but not simply the same. Other things are alike if they have the
same form, and have it in them to be more and less, but are neither more
nor less than one another. Other things, if they are the same attribute,
and one in form, say white, more and less intensely; people say are 1 054b 1 0
alike because their form is one. Other things are alike if they have
more things the same than different, either simply or superficially, as
tin is like silver insofar as it is white, and gold is like fire insofar as it
is yellow and fiery-red.
So it is clear also that other and unlike are meant in more than
one way. And in one sense the other is meant as the opposite of the
same, on account of which everything in relation to everything is either
the same or other. It is meant in another sense if the material and the
articulation are not both one, for which reason you and the next person
are other. And it is meant a third way among mathematical things. So
other and the same on this account are said of everything in relation to
everything-everything that is said to be one and to be; for the other
is not the contradictory of the same, for which reason it is not said of 1 054b 20
things that are not (though they are said to be not the same), but of
all things that are. For as many things as are and are one are naturally
either one or not one [with any other thing] .
7 These lists are referred to at 1 004a 2-3 and b 27-28. One of them is given in 986a.
So the other and the same are opposed in this way, but difference is
something other than otherness. For the other and that of which it is
the other need not be other in any particular respect, since anything
whatever, insofar as it is, is either other or the same; but what is
different from something is different in some particular respect, so
that it must necessarily be the same in some respect as that with which
it differs. This thing that is the same is the genus or species, for all
things that are different differ either in genus or in species: things
differ in genus which do not have common material and do not turn
into one another, as with all things that differ in their manner of being
1 054b 30 predicated, but things differ in species which have the same genus
(and by genus is meant that same thing which both the things that
differ in thinghood are said to be).B Contraries also are different, and
contrariety is a certain kind of difference. That we are right in assuming
this is clear from examples, since these all obviously are also different
and not only other, some of them being other in genus while others
1 055a are in the same list of predicates and thus in the same genus and so
are the same in genus. It has been distinguished elsewhere what sorts
of things are the same or other in genus.
Chapter 4 Since things that differ from one another can differ more
and less, there is a certain kind of difference that is greatest, and this I
call contrariety. That it is the greatest difference is clear from examples.
For things that differ in genus do not have a way to one another, but
hold apart too much and cannot be compared, but the coming into
being of things that differ in species, from their contraries, is as from
extremes, while the interval between extremes is the greatest, and
1 055a 1 0 so also is that between contraries. But surely what is greatest within
any kind is complete, since the greatest is that over which there is
no excess, and the complete is that outside which there is nothing
possible to take. For the complete difference holds an end condition
8 Aristotle regularly uses "genus" to mean any general kind, up to and including the
highest kinds or "categories" (the eight ways of predicating being). He occasionally
uses "species" (eidos) to mean any kind within a larger kind. Almost always, though,
he uses species to mean the kind that corresponds exactly to the thinghood of a thing
and says what it is. Here, and at the beginning of Ch. 8 below, the genus is the class
one step above the species. See 1 01 7a 23-27, 1 024b 1 0-1 7 (the place meant by the
last sentence of this chapter), and 1 032b 2-3.
Gust as also other things are called complete by holding on at an end),

but nothing is outside the end, since it is an ultimate condition in every
thing and encloses it all around, on account of which nothing is outside
the end, and the thing at its end is in need of nothing extra. That, then,
contrariety is complete difference, is clear from these things, and since
things are called contrary in more than one sense, it follows that the
"completely" will belong to them in the same way that it belongs to
them to be contraries.
These things being so, it is clear that it is not possible to be contrary to 1 OSSa 20
more than one thing (for there could neither be anything more extreme
than the extreme, nor more than two extremes of one interval), and
in general, if contrariety is a difference and a difference is between
two things, so too will the complete one. And the other definitions
of contraries must also be true. For the complete difference is the
maximum difference (since it is not possible to take anything outside
on either side of things that differ in genus or in species, for it has
been shown that there is no difference in relation to things outside
the genus, while of things inside it this difference is greatest), and
the things in the same genus that differ most are contraries (since the
greatest difference of these is the complete one), and the things in the
same receptive medium that differ most are contraries (since the same 1 OSSa 30
material belongs to contraries), as are the things subject to the same
power that differ most (since the knowledge that concerns one genus is
also one knowledge), among which the complete difference is greatest.
The primary sort of contrariety is that of an active state and a
deprivation-not every deprivation (for deprivation in meant in more
than one way), but whichever of them is complete. Other things are
called contraries by derivation from these, some on account of having
them, others on account of producing or being apt to produce them,
still others on account of being gains or losses of these or of other
contraries. Now if things are opposites by contradiction, deprivation, 1 0SSb
contrariety, and relative terms, and primary among these is contra
diction, and in contradiction there is no in-between while between
contraries there is, it is clear that contradiction and contraries are not
the same thing; but deprivation is a certain kind of contradiction, for ei
ther the having is completely impossible, or what is of such a nature as
to have something does not have it, and is deprived of it either wholly
or in some limited way (and already we speak of this in a number of
ways, as was said by us in another place9) . So deprivation is a certain

kind of contradiction or incapacity, either marked off by itself or taken
together with the material receptive of what is lacking; for this reason
there is no in-between in contradiction, but in some deprivations there
1 055b 1 0 is. For everything is either equal or not equal, but not everything is ei
ther equal or unequal, but if so, only in something that admits of being
equal. But if acts of coming into being in material are from contraries,
while a thing comes to be either out of the form and the condition of
having the form, or out of some deprivation of the form and formed
condition, it is clear that every contrariety would be a deprivation, but
perhaps not every deprivation would be a contrariety (and the reason
is that the thing that is deprived admits of being deprived in more
than one way) . For it is the extremes from which changes are that are
contraries.
And this is clear also by means of examples; for every contrariety
has a deprivation as one of the two contraries, but not all of them
1 055b 20 in similar ways. For inequality is the deprivation of equality, and
unlikeness of likeness, and vice of virtue, but they differ as was said;
for it is one sort of deprivation if only something is deprived, another
if it is deprived either at some time· or in some respect, as at a certain
time of life, or in the decisive respect, or in every respect. That is why
there is an in-between for the one sort, and it is possible that a human
being be neither good nor bad, but for the other sort there is not, but
a thing has to be either odd or even. Also, while some contrarieties
have a definite underlying subject, others do not.lO So it is clear that
one of the two contraries is always spoken of as a deprivation-but it
is sufficient if the primary contraries, and their highest kinds, such as
the one and the many, are this way, since the others are traced back to
these.
1 055 b 30 Chapter 5 Since one thing is contrary to one thing, someone might
be at an impasse as to how the one and the many are opposed, or how
the equal is opposed to the great and the small. For if we always say
"whether" in an opposition, such as whether something is white or
9 See Bk. V, Ch. 22.

1 0 In Bk. V, Ch. 22, Aristotle mentions many degrees and varieties of blindness, but
all in animals. But we might also call a rock, or justice, or a curve in a road blind.
black, or whether it is white or not white (but we do not ask whether

it is a human being or a white thing, unless on a supposition and
when inquiring, say, whether Cleon or Socrates came-but this is not
a necessity in any class of things, and even this comes from the other
sort of case, since it is only things that are opposite that do not admit
of being present at the same time, which is made use of also in this
case of which of the two came, since if they could have come together 1 056a
the question is absurd, though if so, even this falls similarly into an
opposition, that of the one and the many, as whether both came or
one of the two). So if an inquiry as to a "whether" is always between
opposites, but it is asked whether a thing is greater or less or equal,
what is the opposition of the equal to these? For neither to one of
them alone nor to both is it contrary, for why would it be contrary to
the greater more than to the less? Also, the equal is contrary to the
unequal, so that it would be contrary to more than one thing. But if
the unequal means the same thing as both the greater and the less
together, it would be opposite to them both (and the impasse helps 1 056a 1 0
those who say that the unequal is a dyadll), but it follows that one
thing is contrary to two things, which is impossible. Also, the equal
seems to be between the great and the small, but neither does it seem
that any contrary thing is an in-between, nor is it possible from its
definition, for it would not be a complete contrary if it were between
things, but a contrary instead always has something between itself and
its contrary.
What is left is that it is opposed to them either as a negation or as
a deprivation, but it cannot be of one of the two (for why of the great
rather than of the small?), and therefore is a negative thing deprived
of them both; for this reason the "whether" is said in relation to them
both, and not in relation to one of the two (such as whether something
is greater or equal, or whether it is equal or less), but always there are 1 056a 20
three things. But it is not necessarily a deprivation, since not everything
that is not greater or less is equal, but only things of such a nature that
those attributes belong to them. So the equal is that which is neither
great nor small, but is of such a nature as to be either great or small, and
it is opposed to them as a negation deprived of them both, on account
1 1 This is applied to Plato at 987b 1 9-27 (see the footnote there), and to members
of the Academy at 1 087b 7-9.
of which it is also in between. And what is neither good nor bad is

opposed to both, but is nameless, for each of those two is meant in a
number of ways, and there is not just one thing receptive of them; this
last is more the case with what is neither white nor black, but not even
this is meant in one sense, though the things to which this negation
is applied as a deprivation are somehow limited, since they have to
1 056a 30 be either gray or yellow or something else of that sort. So those who
consider all things to be meant in the same way do not estimate them
rightly, since what is neither a shoe nor a hand would be between a shoe
and a hand, because what is neither good nor bad is between good and
bad, as though there were some sort of in-between in everything. But
it is not necessary that this follow. For the joint negation of opposites
is present for things which are of such a nature that there is some sort
1 056b of in-between and interval. But between things of the other sort there
is not a difference, since the joint negations are of things of which each
is in a genus other than of the other, so that the underlying subject is
not one thing.
Chapter 6 In a similar way, one might be at an impasse about the

one and the many. For if the many are simply opposite to the one, some
impossible things follow. For the one would be few, or a few, since the
many are also opposite to the few. Also, two would be many, if what
is twofold is spoken of as manifold but corresponds to two, so that
the one is few; for in relation to what are two many if not to the one
1 056b 1 0 and the few? For nothing is fewer. Also, if as the long and the short
are in length, so are the many and the few in multitude, and what is
many is much (unless they differ somehow in something continuous
with fluid boundaries), the few would be a certain kind of manyness.
Therefore the one would be a certain kind of manyness, if it is also few,
and this is necessary if two are many.
But perhaps the many are said in a certain way to be also much,
but in a different sense; for example, water is much but not many. But
many is said of all those things that are divided, in one way if there is
a multitude having an excess either simply or in relation to something
(and the few in the same way means a multitude having a deficiency),
in another way as a number, in which sense alone it is also opposite to
1 056b 20 the one. For in this way we speak of one and many in just the way one
might say one and ones, or a white thing and white things, or speak
of the things measured off in relation to their measure; in this way
too, manifold things are spoken of, for each number is many because
it consists of ones and because each number is measured by the one,
and is many as opposed to the one and not to the few. In this sense,
then, even two are many, but this is not as a multitude having an excess
either in relation to anything or simply, but as the first multitude. But in
the simple sense, two are few, for this is the first multitude of those that
have a deficiency. (And this is why Anaxagoras was not right to leave
off after saying that all things together were infinite both in multitude
and in smallness, though he ought to have said, instead of "and in 1 056b 30
smallness," "and in fewness," but that is not infinite.) For things are
few not on account of the one, as some say, but on account of the two.
The one is opposed to the many in numbers as a measure to the
thing measured, and these are opposed as relative terms, but as things
which do not in their own right belong among relative things. And it
has been distinguished by us elsewhere12 that relative is meant in two
ways, some things being relative as contraries, others in the manner
of knowledge in relation to the thing known, because of something 1 057a
else's being spoken of in relation to it. But nothing prevents the one
from being less than something, such as two, since if it is less it is
not also few. But multitude is as though it were the general class of
number, for a number is a multitude measured by the one, and the
one and number are opposed in a certain way, not as contrary but
in the way some relative terms are said to be opposed; for insofar
as something is a measure and something else is measured, in this
respect they are opposed, for which reason not everything that is one
is a number, for instance if something is indivisible. But even though
knowledge is spoken of in a similar way in relation to the thing known,
it does not yield a similar result, for while knowledge might seem to
be the measure, and the thing known what is measured, it turns out 1 057a 1 0
that, while everything that is known is knowable, not every knowable
thing is known, because, in a certain sense, knowledge is measured by
the thing known.
Multitude is contrary neither to the few-to this the many are
contrary as a multitude that exceeds is contrary to what is exceeded
in multitude-nor to the one in every sense. But in one sense they
are contrary, as was said, because multitude is divided and the one
1 2 See Bk. V, Ch. 1 5 .

is indivisible, though in another sense they are ·opposed as relative

terms, as are knowledge and the thing known, if multitude is number
and the one is the measure.
Chapter 7 Since contraries admit of having something in-between,

and some do have it, it is necessary for what is in-between to be made
1 057a 20 out of the contraries. For all in-between things are in the same general
class as the things they are between. For we speak of as in-between
those things into which something that changes must change first (for
instance, if one were to change from the highest to the lowest tone
of a chord by steps of the least interval, one would come first to the
in-between sound, or in colors if one were to change from white to
black, one would come to red or gray before black, and similarly in
other cases), but to change from one general class into another is not
possible other than incidentally, such as from a color into a shape.
Therefore it is necessary for the in-between things themselves to be
1 057a 30 in the same general class and in the same one as the things they are
between.
But surely all in-between things are in-between some sort of op
posites, for only from these is it possible for something to change in
its own right (for which reason it is impossible to be between things
that are not opposites, since then there could be a change that was not
from opposites). But among opposites, between contradictories there
can be no in-between (for this is contradiction: an opposition in which
one of the two parts must be present to anything whatever, which thus
has nothing in-between), and of the rest, some are relative terms, some
deprivations, and others contraries. Among relative terms, those that
are not contraries do not have an in-between, and the reason is that
1 057b they are not in the same general class. For what is in-between knowl
edge and the thing known? But between the great and the small there
is something. But if in-between things are in the same general class as
the things they are between, as has been shown, and are between con
traries, it is necessary that they be composed out of these contraries.
For there will be either some general class that includes them, or none.
And if there is a general class of such a kind that it takes precedence
over the contraries, the specific differences that make those contraries
species of a genus will be contraries of a prior sort, since the species
are composed of the genus and the specific differences. (For exam
ple, if white and black are the contraries; and one is the dilating color,
the other the contracting color,13 these specific differences, dilating 1 057b 1 0
and contracting, are prior to white and black, so that these are con
trary to one another in a prior way.) For surely the things that differ
contrarily are more contrary, while the remaining contraries and the
things in-between them are derivative from the genus and the specific
differences. (For example, as many colors as are between white and
black must be said to be derived from the genus-and the genus is
color-and certain specific differences, but these latter will not be the
primary contraries, for if they were, every color would be either white
or black. So they are different, and therefore they will be between the
primary contraries; but these primary specific differences are dilating
and contracting.)
So one must inquire first, about those contraries that are not in 1 057b 20
a general class, what it is of which the things in-between them are
composed (for things in the same genus must be composed of things
that are not compounded with the genus or else be uncompounded).
Now contraries are not composed of one another, and are therefore
sources, while the things between them are either all composed of
them, or none. But something comes to be out of the contraries, in such
a way that a change will be into this before it is into the other contrary,
for it will be more of one of them and less of the other. Therefore this
also is in-between the contraries. And therefore all the other in-between
things are composite, for a thing that is composed of the more and the
less is in some way derived from those things with respect to which it
is said to be more and less. And since there are no other things prior
to them that are the same in kind as the contraries, all the in-between 1 057b 30
things would be derived from the contraries, so that also all the lower
kinds, both contraries and in-between things, would be derived from
the first contraries. That, then, all in-between things are in the same
general class as, and are between, contraries, and are all composed of
those contraries, is clear.
Chapter 8 That which is other in species is a certain kind of thing

that is other than something, and it is necessary that this kind belong
to both things; for instance, if an animal is other in species, they are
both animals. Therefore it is necessary that things other in species be
1 3 This is the likely story Timaeus tells about color in Plato's Timaeus, 67 D-E.
200 Book X (Book I) Chapter 8
in a genus that is the same; for that one thing which is said to be
1 058a the same in both, not having a specific difference that is incidental,
whether it is present as material or in another way, I call a genus in
this sense.l4 For not only is it necessary that there be a common thing
present, as, say, both are animals, but also this same animalness must
be other in each of the two, as, say, with the one a horse, with the other
a human being, on account of which this common thing is other in
species for each than for the other. So the one will be in its own right
a certain sort of animal, the other in its own right a certain sort, such
as the one a horse, the other a human being. Therefore it is necessary
that this difference be an otherness that belongs to the genus; for by
a difference that belongs to the genus I mean that which makes this
same thing be other. This, then, will be a contrariety (and this is clear
1 058a 1 0 also from examples), for all things are divided by opposites, and it has
been shown that contraries are in the same genus. For contrariety is
complete difference, and every difference in species is a certain kind
of thing that is other than something, so that this same thing is also the
genus in both things. (This is why all the contraries that are different
in species but not in genus are in the same list under the ways of
attributing being,15 and are the most different from one another, since
the difference is complete, and do not come into being together with
one another.) T herefore the specific difference is a contrariety.
This, therefore, is being other in species: the contrariety that things
in the same genus, that are indivisible, have (while those that do not
have a contrariety, which are indivisible, are the same in species).16
1 058a 20 For in divisions contrarieties come about also in the in-between things
before one comes to the indivisible ones; so it is clear that, in relation
to what is called the genus, none of the species is either the same as
it or different from it in species (and fittingly so, for material is made
evident by negation, and the genus is the material of that of which it
is said to be the genus-not the genus in the sense of the generations
of descendants of Heracles, but in the sense that is in the nature of a
1 4 See 1 054b 32-33 and note.

1 5 See the footnote to 1 054a 31 .
1 6 Within a species, what is indivisible is the individual or particular thing; within a
genus, what is indivisible is the species understood as a kind that is unmixed with its
opposite. ·
Book X (Book I) Chapter 9 201
thing), nor is any of them the same or different in species in relation

to the things not in the same genus, but they will differ from them in
genus, but in species from things in the same genus. For it is necessary
that the difference of things that differ in species be a contrariety, and
this belongs only to things which are in the same genus.
Chapter 9 One might be at an impasse as to why woman does

not differ from man in species, since female and male are contraries 1 058a 30
and their difference is a contrariety, nor are a female and a male animal
different in species, even though this difference belongs to an animal in
its own right and not in the way that white or black do, but it is insofar
as it is an animal that female and male belong to it. And this impasse is
just about the same as why one pair of contraries makes things different
in species but another does not, as footed and winged do while white
and black do not. Is it that the one pair are attributes fitting the nature
of the genus while the other are less so? And since one sort of thing 1 058b
is articulation while another is material, those contrarieties that are in
the articulation make a difference in species, but those that are in what
is conceived together with the material do not make such a difference.
This is the reason whiteness of a human being, and blackness, do not
make such a difference, nor is there a difference in species of a white
human being in relation to a black one, even if one were to set down
one name for each. For a human being is as material, and material is
not what makes a difference; for human beings are not on this account
species of human beings, even though the flesh and bones of which
this one and that one are made are different, but it is the composite
whole that is different, though not different in species, because there
is no contrariety in the articulation.
This is the ultimate indivisible thing, and Callias is the articulation 1 058b 1 0
with material, and so it is a white human being, because Callias is
white; thus the human being is white incidentally. Neither are a bronze
and a wooden circle different in species; even a bronze triangle and
a wooden circle do not differ in species on account of their material,
but because there is a contrariety present within their articulations.
But does the material not make things different in species when it is
different in a certain way, or is there a sense in which it does make
.
them different? For why is this particular horse different in species
from this particular human being, even though their articulations are
present with material? Or is it because the contrariety is present in
202 Book X (Book I) Chapter 9
the articulation? For also there is a difference between a white human

1 058b 20 being and a black horse, and it is a difference in species, but that is
not insofar as the one is white and the other is black, since even if
both were white they would still be different in species. And male ·
and female are attributes fitting the nature of an animal, but not in
its thinghood, but in its material and its body, on account of which
the same germinal material becomes female or male by undergoing a
certain way of being acted upon. So what it is to be different in species,
and why some things differ in species and others do not, have been
said.
Chapter 10 But even though contraries are different in species,

while the destructible and indestructible are contraries (since a de
privation is a determinate incapacity), a destructible thing and an
indestructible thing must be different in genus. Now, though, we have
1 058b 30 been speaking of the things themselves of which the names are uni
versals, so it might not seem necessary that every indestructible and
destructible thing whatever be different in species, just as neither are
every white and black thing (since the same thing admits of being both,
even at the same time, if it is one of the universals, as human being may
be both white and black, and even if it is one of the particulars, since
the same human being, though not at the same time, may be both pale
and swarthy, even though white is contrary to black). But while some
contraries belong to some things incidentally, such as those now be-
l 059a ing spoken of and many others, other contraries cannot, among which
are the destructible and the indestructible; for nothing is destructible
incidentally, since what is incidental admits of not being present, but
destructibility is one of the things that are present by necessity in the
things to which they belong. Otherwise one and the same thing would
be destructible and indestructible, if destructibility admits of not be
longing to it. Therefore it is necessary that destructibility either be the
thinghood or be present in the thinghood of each destructible thing;
and the same argument also concerns the indestructible, since both
are among things present by necessity. Therefore, that in respect to
which and as a result of which one thing is destructible and another.
1 059a 1 0 is indestructible in the first place has an opposition, so that they must
be different in genus.
It is clear then that it is not possible for there to be forms of such a
sort as some people say they are,17 for there would be a human being,
one indestructible but another destructible. And yet the forms are said
to be the same in species with the particulars, and not by an ambiguous
name; but things which are different in genus stand further apart than
those that differ in species.
1 7 See 990a 34-990b 1 7, and footnotes.

Book XI (Book K)
Order1
Chapter 1 That wisdom is some sort of knowledge concerning the

sources of things is clear from the first passages in which impasses were
gone through about the things said by others about the sources,2 but 1 059a 20
one might be at an impasse whether one ought to conceive of wisdom
as one or more than one kind of knowledge; for if it is one, one kind
of knowledge is always of contraries, but the sources of things are
not contraries, but if it is not one, what sorts of knowledge ought
one to set these down as being? Also, does it belong to one or to
more than one kind of knowledge to contemplate the starting points
of demonstration? If to one, why that one rather than any other? If
to more than one, what sorts ought one to set these down as? Also,
does wisdom concern all sorts of thinghood or not? For if it is not
about all, it is hard to give an account of which ones it concerns, but
if one knowledge concerns them all, it is unclear how it is possible
for the same knowledge to be about more than one topic. Also, is it
about the kinds of thinghood only, or also about their attributes? For 1 059a 30
if demonstration is possible concerning the attributes, about the kinds
of thinghood it is not possible, but if the two kinds of knowledge
are different, what is each and which is wisdom? For insofar as it is
demonstrative, wisdom would be about attributes, but insofar as it is
about primary things, it would be about the kinds of thinghood.
But neither ought one to set down the kind of knowledge being
sought as concerning the causes spoken of in the writings about nature,
since it is not about that for the sake of which (for this sort of cause
is the good, and this belongs among actions and things that are in
1 This title for Book XI supplied by the translator.

2 This refers to Bk. Ill, Ch. 2. The first eight chapters of Bk. XI summarize the preliminary
argument of the Metaphysics, from Bks. Ill, IV, and VI. The last four chapters of Bk.
XI summarize parts of the Physics, from Bks. II, Ill, and V. Together they examine and
refute an array of reasons why one might believe there is some sort of ultimate disorder
in things. Is there such a thing as wisdom or unchanging being at all (Ch. 1 -2)? Is
knowledge of a number of unconnected kinds (Ch. 3-4, 7)? Is truth contradictory or
relative (Ch. 5-6)? Are incidental being and chance events at the root of things (Ch.
8)? Is the world infinite (Ch. 1 0)? Are motion and change random or indeterminate
(Ch. 9, 1 1 -1 2)?
206 Book XI (Book K) Chapter 1
motion, and it moves things first-for that is the sort of thing an end
is-but a thing that first moves them is not present among immovable
things). And in general, there is an impasse whether the knowledge
1 059b now being sought is about perceptible independent things at all, or
not, but about other things. For if it is about others, it would be about
either the forms or the mathematical things, but it is apparent that
there are no forms. (Nevertheless, there is an impasse, even if one
posits that there are forms, why in the world it is not the same with
the other things of which there are forms as it is with the mathematical
things; I mean that they place the mathematical things between the
forms and the perceptible things as a third sort besides the forms
and the things here, but there is no third human being or horse aside
from the human or horse itself and the particulars, and if in turn it
1 059b 1 0 is not as they say, about what sort of things ought one to set down
the mathematician as being busy with? For it is surely not about the
things here, since none of these is the sort of thing that the mathematical
kinds of knowledge inquire into.) But neither is the knowledge now
being sought concerned with mathematical things (since none of them
is separate), nor is it a knowledge of perceptible independent things,
since they are destructible.
And in general, one might be at an impasse as to what sort of
knowledge it is that considers impasses about the material of math
ematical things. For neither is it the study of nature, since the whole
business of one who studies nature is concerned with things that have
in themselves a source of motion and rest, nor is it the examination
1 059b 20 of demonstration and knowledge, since it makes its inquiry about just
that class of things. It remains, then, for the sort of philosophy that lies
before us to make the examination about them. But one might be at an
impasse whether one ought to set it down that the knowledge being
sought concerns the sources that are called elements by some peo
ple, for everyone sets these down as ingredients in compound things.
But it might seem instead that the knowledge being sought has to be
about things that are universal, since every articulation and every sort
of knowledge is about universals and not about ultimate particulars,
and so that which concerns the primary classes of things would be
that way too. These would turn out to be being and oneness, for these
most of all might be supposed to include all beings and to be most
1 059b 30 like sources on account of being primary in nature, since if these were
destroyed everything else would also be taken away along with them,
Book XI (Book K) Chapter 2 207
since everythlng is and is one. But insofar as it is necessary for their

own specific differences to have a share in them, if one sets them down
as general classes, while no specific difference has a share in its genus,3
on this account it would seem that one ought not to set them down as
general classes or as sources. Also, if the simpler thlng is more a source
than is the less simple thing, while the lowest classes cut off from the
genus are simpler than those general classes (for they are indivisible,
but the general classes are divided into a number of differing species),
the species would seem to be sources more than would the general
classes. But insofar as the species are destroyed along with the general
classes, the general classes seem more like sources, for the thing that 1 060a
causes thlngs to be destroyed along with it is a source. So the thlngs
that have impasses are these and others like them.
Chapter 2 Also, ought one to set down anything besides the

particular things or not, and is the knowledge being sought about
particulars? But these are infinite. Yet surely the things apart from
the particulars are general classes or species, but the knowledge now
being sought is not about either of these. Why this is impossible has
been said.4 For in general there is an impasse as to whether one ought
to assume there to be any separate independent thing besides the
perceptible independent things here around us, or not, or that these
are the beings and wisdom is concerned with them. For we seem to 1 060a 1 0
be seeking something else, and this is what lies before us: I mean, to
see whether there is anything separate by itself and belonging to none
of the perceptible things. Also, if besides the perceptible independent
thlngs there is any other independent thing, alongside which of the
perceptible things ought one to set this down as being? For why would
one set it alongside human beings and horses more than alongside the
3 There is no general class of all things that are or are one, since nothing would be left
outside it to be specific differences and divide it into subclasses. There are, according
to Aristotle in this work (1 01 7a 23-27), eight highest irreducible classes of beings. See
also 998b 22-28.
4 Book VII, Ch. 1 6, is perhaps the place where this is made clearest. The species
(the form understood as a universal), and even more so any more general universal
classes, have no separate being and could not be causes. But since the particular things
are unknowable, the central impasse in the way of the knowledge being sought is
established. This knowledge must be of forms understood as separate (1 01 7b 27-28)
and as at-work (991 a 23-24).
208 · Book XI (Book K) Chapter 2
other animals and even the things without souls in totality? But surely
to set up other everlasting things equal in number to the perceptible
and destructible independent things would seem to fall outside the
bounds of what is reasonable. But if the source now being sought
1 060a 20 is not separate from bodies, what else could one posit other than
material? Yet this does not have being as something at-work, but as
in potency. And a more ruling source than this would seem to be the
look or the form, but this is destructible,5 so that there is no everlasting
independent thing separate in its own right at all. But this is absurd,
for it is evident that there is some such source and independent thing
and it is the sort of thing sought for by the most refined thinkers as
something that has being; for how would there be order if there were
not something everlasting and separate and constant?
Also, if there is an independent thing and source of such a nature
as we are now seeking, and this is one and the same for all things, both
the everlasting and the destructible ones, there is an impasse as to why
1 060a 30 in the world, when the source is the same, some of the things ruled
by the source are everlasting but others are not everlasting (for this is
absurd); but if there is one source of the destructible things and another
of the everlasting ones, and if the source of the destructible things is
.everlasting, we are similarly at an impasse. (For why, if the source is
everlasting, are the things ruled by the source not also everlasting?)
But if it is perishable, there would turn out to be some other source of
this one, and yet another of that one, and this would go on to infinity.
But if in turn one were to set down what seem most of all to
1 060b be unchanging sources, being and oneness, first, if each of them
does not signify a this and an independent thing, how would they
be separate and by themselves? But we are seeking everlasting and
primary sources of that kind. If however each of them does indicate a
this and an independent thing, all beings are independent things, since
being is attributed to them all (and also oneness to some of them). But it
is false that every being is an independent thing.6 And also, as for those
who say that the first source is the one, and generate number first from
1 060b 1 0 the one and material, how is it possible for what they say to be true?
5 If the form is understood merely as the ordering of a particular thing and in its
material, it is destructible. See 1 039b 20-25.
6 Recall that beings include white, walking, yesterday, four ounces, and everything
that is.
For how ought one to think of two, and each of the rest of the numbers
that are composite, as one? For neither do they say anything about
this, nor is it easy to say anything. And if one sets down lines or the
things following from these (I mean the first surfaces) as sources, these
are surely not separate independent things, but cuts and divisions, the
former from surfaces and the latter from solids (but points from lines),
and also they are limits of these same things, and all these are present
in other things and none is separate. Also, how is one to understand
there to be thinghood of a unit or a point? For of every independent
thing there is a process of coming into being, but of a point there is not,
since the point is a division?
And there is besides an impasse, that all knowledge is of universals 1 060b 20
and of the suchness of things, but thinghood does not belong to
universals, but rather an independent thing is a this and is separate, so
if there is knowledge about the sources, how ought one to understand
the source to be an independent thing? Also, is there anything besides
the composite whole (I mean the material and what is together with
this), or not? For if not, then the destructible things in material are all
the things there are, but if there is something else, this would be the
look and the form; now this is in some cases difficult to mark off and
in others not, for in some cases, such as that of a house, it is clear that
the form is not separate. Also, are the sources the same in species or in
number? For if they are one in number, all things would be the same. 1 060b 30
Chapter 3 Now since the knowledge that belongs to the philoso

pher concerns being as being universally and not in relation to a part,
while being is meant in a number of ways and not in a single sense,
then if it is meant ambiguously and in accordance with nothing that
is common to those meanings, it is not possible that it be subject to
one knowledge (since there is not one class of such things), but if it is
meant in accordance with something common, it would be subject to
one knowledge. It seems to be meant in the way that has been spoken
of, in just the way that medical and healthy are meant. For each of these
is meant in a number of senses, but each of them is meant in this way: 1 061 a
by leading back in some way, in the one case to medical knowledge,
7 This argument applies only to things that sometimes are and sometimes are not.
See 1 002a 30-1 002b 1 1 .
21 0 Book XI (Book K) Chapter 3
and in the other case to health, and though these lead back in various
ways, in each case it is to the same thing. For a medical discourse or
a medical knife are meant by the former's being from medical knowl
edge and by the latter's being useful for this. And it is similar also with
healthy; for one thing is called so because it is a sign of health, another
because it tends to produce it. And it is the same way also with the
rest of its meanings. So it is also in the same way that being is meant
in every instance, for it is by being an attribute of being as being, or an
active state of it, or a disposition, or a motion of it, or something else of
1 061 a 1 0 that sort that each of them is called a being. And since for every being
there turns out to be a leading back to some one thing that is common
to them, then also each of the pairs of contraries will be traced back
to the first differences and contrarieties of being, whether many and
one or likeness and unlikeness are the first differences within being,
or some other pair, for let these stand as having been examined. And
it makes no difference whether the tracing back of being turns out to
be toward being or toward oneness, for even if these are not the same
but different, still they are interchangeable, for it is the case both that
what is one also in some way is, and that what is is one.
And since it belongs to a knowledge that is one and the same to
1 061 a 20 study every pair of contraries, and each of them is spoken of by means
of some deprivation (even though someone might raise an impasse
about some of them as to how they are meant in accordance with
a deprivation when there is something in-between them, as in the
case of the unjust and the just, so that in all such cases one must set
down that the deprivation is not a lack of the whole articulation, but
of the extreme form of it, for example, if the just person is by some
active condition obedient to the laws, the unjust person would not
be lacking the whole of that articulation in every respect, but failing
in some respect concerning obeying the laws, and in this sense the
deprivation will belong to him, and in the same way also in the other
cases), and just as the mathematician makes his study about things
1 061 a 30 that result from taking something away (for he studies things after
having stripped away everything perceptible, such as heaviness and
lightness, hardness and its opposite, and also hotness and coldness
and the other pairs of contrary perceptible attributes, and this leaves
behind only what is of some amount and continuous, belonging to
some things in one dimension, some in two, and others in three, and
he studies the attributes that belong to these insofar as they are of some
Book XI (Book K) Chapter 4 21 1
amount and continuous, and in no other respect, and he examines the

relative positions of some, and the things that follow from these, and 1 061 b
of others the kinds of commensurability and incommensurability, and
of others the ratios, but still we set it down that there is one and the
same knowledge of all this, namely geometry), so too is it the same
way with being (for the attributes that belong to this to the extent that
it is being, and the contrarieties within it insofar as it is being, belong to
no other sort of knowledge than philosophy to study, since one would
assign the study of them to physics not insofar as they are, but rather
insofar as they have a share in motion, while dialectic and sophistry
are concerned with the attributes of beings, but not insofar as they are,
and they are not concerned with being itself to the extent that it is) so 1 061 b 1 0
that it remains for the philosopher to be the one who studies the things
that have been spoken of, to the extent that they are beings.
Since all being is meant in accordance with something that is one
and common, even though it is meant in a number of ways, and it is
the same way with the contraries (since they are traced back to the first
contrarieties and differences of being), such things are capable of being
subject to one knowledge, and the impasse spoken of at the beginning
would be resolved-! mean that in which it was raised as an impasse
how there could be one knowledge that concerns beings that are many
and different in kind.
Chapter 4 And since the mathematician uses common notions

in a particular way, it would also belong to the primary sort of
philosophy to study the things that govern these. For that, when equals 1 061 b 20
are subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal, is common to
all things that have amounts, but mathematics makes its study by
cutting out around its boundary a certain part of the material that is
appropriate to it, such as around lines or angles or numbers or any of
the other quantities, not insofar as they are but insofar as each of them is
continuous in one, two, or three dimensions; but philosophy does not
make its examination about a part of things, insofar as some attribute
belongs to each of them, but studies being, insofar as each such part is.
And it is the same way also with the knowledge about nature as with
mathematics, for physics studies the attributes and sources of beings 1 061 b 30
insofar as they are in motion and not insofar as they are (but we have
said that the primary sort of knowledge is about these things to the
extent that the things underlying them are beings, but not insofar as
they are anything else). For this reason one must set down both this
sort of knowledge and the mathematical sort as parts of wisdom.
Chapter 5 There is a certain principle in beings about which it is

not possible to be mistaken, but always necessary to do the opposite,
and I mean to attain the truth, and it is of this sort: that it is impossible
1 062a for the same thing at one and the same time to be and not to be, and for
the other things that are opposite to each other in that way to belong
to it. And about such things there is no demonstration simply, but
in relation to some person there is; for it is not possible to make a
syllogism to this from a starting point more secure than it, but this is
necessary if there is to be a demonstrating of it simply. But in relation
to a person who makes opposite statements, it is necessary for the one
showing why he is wrong to get from him something of a sort that
will be the same as "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not
be at one and the same time," but will not seem to be the same, for
1 062a 1 0 only in this way can it be demonstrated to the one who says that the
opposed statements can be true of the same thing. Now those who are
going to participate in a discussion with each other must in some way
understand what they say, for if this does not happen, how will there
be a participation of these people in a discussion with each other? It
is necessary then for each of the words to be intelligible and to mean
something, and not many things but only one, but if it does mean more
than one thing, it is necessary to make clear to which of these one is
applying the word. So the one who says " this is and is not" denies that
which he says, and so he denies that this word means what it means,
which is impossible. So if being-this means something, it is impossible
for the contradiction to be true.
1 062a 20 Also, if the word means something, and if this is true of something,
it must be this by necessity, but that which is so by necessity does
not admit of sometimes not being so; therefore it is not possible for
the opposed statement and contradiction to be true of the same thing.
Also, if the statement were no more true than its contradiction, the one
saying "human being" will be no more correct than one saying "not
a human being," but it would seem that in saying a human being is
not a horse, one is either more, or at least not less, correct than one
who says a human being is not a human being, but the result is that
one would also be correct in saying that the same person is a horse
(since the opposite things were to be alike true); it follows then that
the same human being is also a horse or any of the other animals. 1 062a 30
So while there is no demonstration of these things simply, surely in
relation to the one who posits these contradictory things, there is a
demonstration. And one who questioned even Heracleitus himsel£8 in
this way would have quickly compelled him to agree that opposite
statements are never capable of being true of the same things. But as it
is, he took hold of this opinion without understanding what his own
words meant. But in general, if the thing said by him is true, not even
that itself would be true-I mean, that it is possible for the same thing 1 062b
at one and the same time both to be and not be; for just as, when they
are separated, the assertion would be no more true than the denial, in
the same way too, since the pair of them put together and intertwined
are just like some one assertion, the whole as put in an assertion will
be no more true than its denial. Also, if nothing is truly asserted, even
this itself would be false-to assert that there is no true assertion. But if
there is any, that would refute the thing said by those who make such 1 062b 1 0
attacks which completely abolish conversation.
Chapter 6 Something closely resembling the things being dis

cussed is what was said by Protagoras, for he said that a human being
is the measure of all things, meaning nothing else than that what seems
so to each person is solidly so; but if this becomes so, it follows that
the same thing both is and is not, and is both bad and good, and the
rest of the statements asserted as opposites follow, since it often seems
to some particular people that this thing is beautiful, but it seems the
opposite to others, while the measure is the thing that seems so to each. 1 062b 20
This impasse can be resolved by those who examine the source from
which this judgement has been taken, for it seems to have come about
for some people from the opinion of those who study nature, and for
others from the fact that not all people discern the same things about
the same things, but this thing seems sweet to some people and the
opposite to others. For it is a common teaching of just about all those
who have concerned themselves with nature that nothing comes to be
out of what is not, but everything out of what is; so since what is not
white comes to be out of what is completely white and in no way not
white, the thing that had become white could come to be out of what
8 See 1 005b 24-26, and footnote.

was not white, so that, according to them, it would come to be out of

1 062b 30 what was not unless in the first place the same thing was white and
not white. But it is not difficult to resolve this impasse, for it has been
said in the writings about nature in what way a thing that comes to be
comes from what is not and in what way from what is.9 And surely,
when people are in dispute with one another, to hold alike to the opin
ions and the way things seem on both sides is silly, for it is clear that
those on one of the two sides must be in error. And this is evident from
1 063a what happens in sense perception, for never does the same thing seem
sweet to some and the opposite to others unless the sense organ and
means of judging the flavors mentioned is disabled and damaged in
those on one of the two sides. And if this is so, one ought to assume
that those on one side are the measure and not to assume this of the
others. And I mean this similarly in the case of good and bad, and of
beautiful and ugly, and all the other such things; for it is no different
to give credence to this or to what appears to those who push a finger
under their eyes and make out of one thing an appearance of two,
and so think that there have to be two things because they appear that
1 063a 1 0 many, and then again one, for to those who do not move their eyes,
one thing appears to be one thing.lO
· And in general it is absurd to make a judgement about the truth
based on the fact that the things around us obviously change and
never remain in the same condition, for in order to hunt for the truth,
one ought to base one's judgement on the things that always hold on
in the same condition and never make a change, and the things that
pertain to the cosmos are of that sort, for these do not appear at one
time in a certain way but then in another way, but always the same and
not taking part in any change. Also, if there is motion and something is
9 Everything that comes to be comes from what is in some way but is not what it
will become, or is in potency what it will become but not so at-work. The error of
Parmenides, that change and manyness are impossible, and various partial versions
of the same error, are traced by Aristotle, in Bk. I, Ch. 8, of the Physics, to the failure
to make these distinctions. See also 1 032b 3 1 -32.
1 0 See 1 01 Ob 2-30, where this is discussed more fully, and the references given in
the footnote there. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is the fatuous saying of our
time that corresponds to Protagoras's saying. It is obviously true of a certain kind of
experience, and is then taken as meaning something altogether different, that there
is nothing beautiful in its own right, which we might need clear sight to behold. In
the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that bad habits and uncontrolled desires cloud
our sight. (1 1 44a 33-36)
moved and everything is moved from something to something, then it

is necessary for the thing moved to be in that condition out of which it
is going to be moved, and not be in it, and to be moved into this other 1 063a 20
one and come to be in that, but the things that result in contradiction
are not true together at the same times. And if the things around us
continually flow and are in motion with respect to how much they are,
which one might posit even though it is not true, why should they not
stay the same with respect to what sort they are? For contradictory
things seem to be attributed to the same thing not least on account of
supposing that the sizes of bodies do not remain the same, for which
reason the same thing would both be and not be four feet long. But the
thinghood of things goes by what sort they are, and this is of a definite
nature, while how much they are is indefinite.
Also, why; when ordered by the doctor to take this particular food,
do people take it? For why is this a loaf of bread any more than it 1 063a 30
isn't? So it should make no difference to eat it or not eat it, but as it
is, as though these things were true about it and this were the food
prescribed, people take it, and yet they ought not to if no nature
remains firmly the same among perceptible things, but they are all
always in motion and in flux. Also, if we are always changing and
never remain the same, what wonder is it if things never seem the
same to us, just as happens with those who are sick? (For to them also, 1 063b
since their conditions are not disposed in the same way as when they
are healthy, the things that pertain to perceptible things do not appear
similar, while the perceptible things themselves do not on this account
take part in any change, but make different perceptions, and not the
same ones, in those who are sick; and presumably it is necessary that it
be the same way also when the change spoken of happens.) But if we
do not change but continue being the same, there would be something
that stays still.
So for those who hold on to the impasses mentioned based on
reason, it is not easy to refute them if they will not posit something
and no longer demand a reason for this, for that is the way every 1 063b 1 0
argument and every demonstration comes about, since by positing
nothing people annihilate conversation and reason altogether, and so
with such people there is no argument, but for those who are at an
impasse as a result of the traditional paradoxes, it is easy to meet and
to refute the thing producing the impasses in them, and this is clear
from what has been said. So it is clear from these things that it is not
possible for contradictory statements to be true about the same thing

at one time, nor for contrary statements, since every contrariety is
spoken of by way of deprivation, and this is clear to those who reduce
the articulations of the contraries to their source. And similarly, neither
1 063b 20 is it possible to attribute anything that is in between the contraries to
one and the same contrary thing, for if the underlying thing is white,
then in saying that it is neither black nor white we would be wrong,
since it would follow that the same thing was and was not white, since
either one of the two intertwined attributes would be true of it, and
one of these is the contradictory of white.
So neither is it possible for those speaking in accordance with
Heracleitus to be right, nor for those speaking in accordance with
Anaxagoras; otherwise contraries would tum out to be attributed to
the same thing, for when one says that a part of everything is in
everything, he says that nothing is sweet any more than it is bitter,
or any of the rest of the contraries whatever, if indeed everything is
1 063b 30 present in everything not in potency only but at-work and separate.
And similarly, not all statements can be false nor all true, both because
of many other unmanageable results that could be inferred from
positing this, and because if all things were false not even would one
be right to say this itself, while if all were true, one would not be wrong
to say they were all false.
Chapter 7 Every sort of knowledge seeks certain sources and

causes that concern each kind of the things known by them, as do
1 064a medicine and gymnastic and all the rest of the kinds of knowledge,
both productive and mathematical. For each of these, drawing a
boundary around some class of things for itself, busies itself about
this as something that is and is present to it, but not insofar as it is, but
this is the business of another sort of knowledge different from these
sorts. Each of the sorts of knowledge mentioned, taking hold in some
way of what something is in each class of things, tries to make clear the
rest of the things pertaining to it, either more loosely or more precisely.
Some of them get hold of what something is by means of perception,
others by making a hypothesis, for which reason it is clear from such
a survey of examples that there is no demonstration of thinghood or
what something is.
1 064a 1 0 And since there is a kind of knowledge that is about nature, it is
clear that it will be different from both the practical and the productive
sorts. For in the productive sort, the source of motion is in the one who
makes and not in the thing made, and this is either an art or some
other capacity, and similarly in the practical sort, the motion is not in
the thing done but in the ones who act. But the knowledge of the one
who studies nature is about things that have in themselves a source
of motion. That, then, it is necessary for the natural sort of knowledge
to be neither practical nor productive but contemplative, is clear from
these things (since it must fall into some one of these classes). And
since it is necessary for each sort of knowledge to know in some way 1 064a 20
what something is, and to use this as a starting point, one must not let it
go unnoticed in what way the one who studies nature needs to define
it and how he needs to get hold of the articulation of the thinghood
of things-whether in the manner of the snub nose or rather in the
manner of the curved line. For one of these, the articulation of the
snub nose, is meant as including the material of the thing, but that of
the curved line is meant as separate from the material, since snubness
comes about in a nose, and hence also the articulation of it is studied
along with this, since the snub is a curved-in nose. It is clear then that
of flesh and of an eye and of the rest of the parts, one needs always to
give the articulation along with the material.
But since there is a sort of knowledge of being as being and as
separate, one must examine whether one ought to set this down as 1 064a 30
being the same as the study of nature or rather as different. Now the
study of nature is about things having a source of motion in themselves,
while mathematics is contemplative and concerns something that
remains the same, but is not separate. Therefore, about the sort of being
that is separate and motionless, there is another sort of knowledge that
is different from both of these, if there is any such independent thing-I
mean something separate and motionless-which is just what we shall
try to show. And if there is any such nature among beings, that would
be where the divine also is, and this would be the primary and most 1 064b
governing source of things. It is clear, then, that there are three classes
of contemplative knowledge: physics, mathematics, and theology. So
the class of contemplative kinds of knowledge is the best, and among
these themselves the best is the one mentioned last, for it is about the
most honorable of beings, but each sort of knowledge is called better
or worse in accordance with the thing known that is appropriate to it.
218 Book X I (Book K) Chapter 7
One might be at an impasse whether the knowledge of being as

being ought to be set down as universal or not.ll For each of the
mathematical sorts of knowledge is about some one definite class, but
universal mathematics is a study that concerns them all in common.
1 064b 1 0 So if natural independent things are primary among beings, then also
physics would be the primary sort of knowledge; but if there is another
nature and independent thing that is separate and motionless, it is
necessary that the knowledge of it be other than and prior to physics,
and universal by being prior.
Chapter 8 Since simply to be is meant in more than one way, of

which one is meant as incidental being, one must examine first what
concerns this sort of being. Now it is clear that none of the kinds of
knowledge that have been handed down concerns itself with what is
incidental. (For the art of housebuilding does not consider what will
1 064b 20 happen incidentally to those who use the house, such as whether they
will live there unpleasantly or the opposite, nor do the arts of weaving
or leather-working or sauce-making consider such incidental things,
but each of these kinds of knowledge considers only what is proper
to itself in its own right, and that is the end particular to it; nor about
the fact that one who is musical, when he has become literate, will be
both of these together, not having been so before, while that which is
so, not having always been so, has been coming into being, so that
he was coming to be musical-together-with-literate-this is inquired
about by none of the kinds of knowledge that are acknowledged to be
knowledge, but only by sophistry, for this alone concerns itself with
what is incidental, for which reason Plato's assertion was not bad when
1 064b 30 he said sophistry spends its time on nonbeing.)
That it is not even possible for there to be knowledge of what is
incidental will be clear to those who try to see what in the world it is
that is incidental. Now we say of everything either that it is so always
and by necessity (meaning necessity not as by force but in the way we
use it in matters that have to do with demonstration), or that it is so for
the most part, or that it is so neither for the most part nor always and
by necessity but however it chances to be, as it might become cold in
the dog days, though this happens neither always and by necessity nor
1 1 On this paragraph, see 1 026a 23-32, and footnotes.

for the most part, but might tum out so incidentally sometimes. So the 1 065a
incidental is what happens not always nor by necessity nor for the most
part. What, then, the incidental is has been said, and why there is no
knowledge of such a thing is clear, for every sort of knowledge is about
something that is so always or for the most part, but the incidental is
among neither of these.
And that, of what is so incidentally, there are not causes and sources
of the same sort as there are of what is so in its own right, is clear, for
then everything would be by necessity. For if this is so when that is,
and that when this other is, and this last is not however it chances to
be but by necessity, then also that of which this is the cause will be by 1 065a 1 0
necessity down to the last of the things mentioned as caused (while
this was incidental), and so everything will be by necessity, and what
can be whichever way it chances and admits of either happening or
not is completely annihilated from the things that happen. And if the
cause is posited not as being so but as becoming so, the same things
will follow, for everything will come to be by necessity. For the eclipse
tomorrow will happen if this has happened, and this if something else,
and that if another thing, and in this way taking away time from the
finite time from now until tomorrow, one will at some time come to
something already present, and so, since this is so, all the things that 1 065a 20
are going to happen after this will come to be by necessity.
So of being in the senses of being true and being incidental, the
former is present in something intertwined by thinking and is some
thing undergone within thinking (which is why it is not of being in this
sense that the sources are being sought, but of being that is outside and
separate), and the latter-I mean what is incidental-is not necessary
but indeterminate, and of such a thing the causes are without order
and without limit.
That which is for the sake of something is present in things that
happen by nature or as a result of thinking, but it is fortune12 when
1 2 In the Physics, Bk. II, Ch. 4-6, from which this paragraph is taken, Aristotle is
careful to distinguish chance in general from fortune, which is chance that occurs
within events following from human choices. Here the distinction is muddled by the
compression of the argument. In the Physics the emphasis is on the fact that ends or
final causes are present in all natural events, even though thinking and choice are not.
It is the more general conclusion that is taken up here, that chance causes always come
about by the interference of two or more lines of causes that are in themselves for the
sake of something. By fortune one finds someone who owes him money, when he
any of these happen incidentally, for just as being is in one way in

1 065a 30 its own right and in another way incidental, so also with cause. And
fortune is an incidental cause in the things that are by choice, among
those that happen for the sake of something, for which reason fortune
and thinking concern the same things, since there is no choice apart
from thinking. The causes from which the things that are from fortune
might come about are indeterminate, on account of which also fortune
is unclear to human reason and is a cause incidentally, but simply it is
a cause of nothing. Fortune is good or bad when what issues from it
1 065b is good or bad, but good fortune and ill fortune have to do with great
instances of these. And since nothing incidental takes precedence over
things in their own right, neither then do incidental causes, so if fortune
or chance is a cause of the heavens, intelligence and nature have a prior
responsibility.
Chapter 9 Something is in one way only as at-work, in another

way as in potency, and in another both in potency and at-work, and
again in one way as a being, in another as so-much, in other ways in the
rest of the categories13; and there is no motion apart from things, since
something changes always with respect to the categories of being, and
there is nothing common to these which is not within a single category.
1 065b 1 0 Each of these belongs to anything in two ways (for example a this is
either its form or its deprivation, and with respect to the of-what-sort
there is white or black, with respect to the so-much there is complete
or incomplete, and with respect to change of place there is up or down,
or light and heavy), so that there are just as many forms of motion and
change as there are of being. Since what is in potency in each particular
class of things is distinct from what is at-work-staying-itself, I say that
motion is the being-at-work of what is in potency, insofar as it is such.
And that we say this truly is clear from the following: for when what is
buildable, insofar as we mean it to be such, is at-work, it is being built,
and this is the activity of building, and similarly with learning, healing,
went to the marketplace to buy oil; by chance the rain that maintains the equilibrium
of the cosmos also rots the wheat that was already harvested. The hierarchical ordering
of causes is reflected in the distinction between being something in its own right and
being something incidentally. See also Bk. VI above, Ch. 2-3.
1 3 The "categories" are the eight ways of attributing being listed at 1 01 7a 23-27
(and again below at 1 068a 8-1 0 with one left out), and hence the highest classes.
walking, leaping, growing old, and ripening. It belongs to each to be 1 065b 20

in motion whenever this being-at-work-staying-itself is itself present,
and neither before nor after. So the being-at-work-staying-itself of what
is in potency, whenever it is at-work as a being-at-work-staying-itself,
not as itself but as movable, is motion.14
I mean the as in the following way. Bronze is a statue in potency,
but nevertheless it is not the being-at-work-staying-itself of the bronze
as bronze that is motion. For it is not the same thing to be bronze
and to be potentially-something, since if it were the same simply by its
meaning, the being-at-work-staying-itself of bronze would be a certain
sort of motion. But these are not the same (and this is clear in the case
of contraries, for being capable of being healthy and being capable of
being sick are not the same, since then being healthy and being sick 1 065b 30
would be the same, but it is the thing that underlies both being healthy
and being sick, whether this is blood or some other fluid, that is one
and the same), and since they are not the same, just as neither are a
color and being visible the same, the being-at-work-staying-itself of
the- potency just as a potency is motion. Now that it is this, and that it
turns out that a thing is in motion at the time when this being-at-work
staying-itself is itself present, and neither before nor after, is clear. (For 1 066a
each thing admits of being at work at one time and at another time
not, such as the buildable as buildable, and the being-at-work of the
buildable insofar as it is buildable is the activity of building, for the
being-at-work is either this, the activity of building, or a house, but
whenever the house is present, it is no longer something buildable,
but what is being built is the buildable thing; therefore it is necessary
that this being-at-work be the activity of building, but the activity of
building is a certain sort of motion, and the same account also applies
to the other motions.)
That this is said rightly is clear from the things other people say
about it, and from the fact that it is not easy to define it otherwise.
For one could not even place it in another general class, and this is 1 066a 1 0
clear from the things people say, for some say motion is otherness
1 4 What is crucial here is that potencies of things are not just logical possibilities, and
motions are not just brute facts; in a motion a potency itself has the structure of a
being, emerging and holding on as the potency it is by way of activity. See discussions
of this definition in the introduction and commentary of my translation of Aristotle's
Physics, pp. 2 1 -24 and 78--80 (Rutgers University Press, 1 995, 1 998).
or inequality or nonbeing, none of which is necessarily in motion, but

change is no more into or out of these than into or out of their opposites.
But the reason for placing it in these classes is that motion seems to
be something indefinite, while one whole array of principles seems
to be indefinite on account of being negations, since none of them is
either a this or an of-this-sort or the rest of the categories. And the
reason for motion's seeming to be indefinite is that it is not possible
to place it as a potency or as a being-at-work of beings, for neither is
1 066a 20 what is capable of being so-much necessarily in motion, nor what is
actively so-much; and motion seems to be a certain sort of being-at
work, but incomplete, and the reason is that the potency of which it is
the [complete] being-at-work is itself incomplete. And for this reason
it is hard to grasp what it is, for it is necessary to place it either as a
deprivation or as a potency or as an unqualified being-at-work, but
none of these seems admissible; so what remains is what has been
said, both that it is a being-at-work and that it is the sort of being-at
work that has been described, which is difficult to bring into focus but
capable of being.
And it is clear that motion is in t:Ite movable thing, for it is the
being-at-work-staying-itself of this by the action of the thing capable of
causing motion. And the being-at-work of the thing capable of causing
motion is not different, since it is necessary that it be the being-at-work
1 066a 30 staying-itself of both; for a thing is capable of causing motion by its
potency and is in motion by being-at-work, but it is capable of being
at-work upon the thing moved, so that the being-at-work of both alike
is one, just as the interval from one to two and from two to one is the
same, and the uphill and downhill road, though the being of them is
not one, and similarly also in the case of the thing causing motion and
the thing moved.
Chapter 10 The infinite is either that which cannot be gone through

because it is not of such a nature as to be gone through, just as sound
is invisible, or that which has a way out through it which cannot be
completed, or can scarcely be completed, or that which is of such
1 066b a nature as to have, but does not have, a way out through it or a
limit, and it is so by way of either addition or subtraction or both.
Now it is not possible for it to be itself something separate, for if the
infinite were neither a magnitude nor a multitude, but were itself an
independent thing and not an attribute, it would be indivisible (since
what is divisible is either a magnitude or a multitude); but if it is

indivisible it is not infinite except in the way that sound is invisible,
but this is not what people mean by it nor what we are inquiring
about, which is that which has no way out through it. Also, how could
the infinite admit of being something in its own right, if number and
magnitude, of which the infinite is an attribute, do not? Also, if it is an
attribute, it could not, insofar as it is infinite, be an element of beings, 1 066b 1 0
any more than the invisible is an element of speech, despite the fact
that sound is invisible. And it is clear that it is not possible for there to
be an infinite actively. For then any part of it whatever that was taken
would be infinite (since the infinite and the being-infinite of it are the
same, if the infinite is an independent thing and does not belong to
some underlying thing), and so it is either indivisible or, if divisible,
divided into infinites; but it is impossible for the same thing to be many
infinites (for just as a part of air is air, so would a part of the infinite
be infinite, if it is an independent thing and a source), and therefore
it is indivisible and without parts. But this is impossible for what is
infinite in complete activity (since it is necessary that it be a so-much),
and therefore it is present as an attribute. But if it has being in that way, 1 066b 20
it has been said that it cannot be it that is a source of things, but that
of which it is an attribute, the air or the even.15
This inquiry has pertained to universals, but that there is no infinite
among perceptible things is clear from what follows. For if the articula
tion of a body is that which is bounded by surfaces, there could not be
an infinite body, neither a perceptible one nor an intelligible solid; nor
could there be a number that is separate and infinite, since a number
or that which has a number is countable. And this is also clear from
the following considerations that pertain to the study of nature. For
the infinite could not be either composite or simple. It could not be a
composite body, if the elements are finite in number (for it is necessary
that the contrary elements be in equilibrium, and that no one of them
is infinite, since if the power in either of the bodies falls short to any 1 066b 30
degree whatever, the finite one will be destroyed by the.infinite one-:
and it is impossible that each of them be infinite, since a body is that
1 5 Anaximenes said that the source of all things was the infinite air. For the Pythagore
ans, who said everything is number, the odd was the source of finitude and identity,
while the even, that breaks in two, was the source of the infinite.
224 Book XI (Book K) Chapter 1 0
which has extension in every direction, and the infinite is what is ex
tended limitlessly, so that if there is an infinite body, it will be infinite
in every direction); but neither is it possible for an infinite body to be
one and simple, neither as some people say, as something apart from
the elements, out of which they are generated (for there is no such
body apart from the elements, since everything is made of something
1 067a and dissolves into this, but this is not apparent with anything besides
the simple bodies), nor as fire or any other of the elements, for apart
from the being-infinite of any one of them, it is impossible for the sum
of things, even if it is finite, either to be or to become one of them,
as Heracleitus says that all things sometimes become fire. The same
argument also applies to the one body that the writers on nature make
besides the elements, for everything changes out of a contrary, as out
of hot into cold.
Also, a perceptible body is somewhere, and the same place belongs
to the whole and to the part, as with the earth, so if it is homogeneous,
1 067a 1 0 it will be motionless or always carried along, but this is impossible.
(For why downward rather than upward or in any direction whatever?
For instance, if it were a lump of earth, where would this be moved or
where would it stay still? For the place of the body homogeneous with
it is infinite. Then will it take up the whole place? And how? What
then will its rest or its motion be? Or is it at rest everywhere? Then it
will not be moved. Or will it be in motion everywhere? Then it will not
stay still.) But if the whole is heterogeneous, then the places are also
heterogeneous, and, first, the body of the whole will not be one other
than by contact; further, the parts will be either finite or infinite in kind.
It is not possible for them to be finite (for then some, such as fire or
1 067a 20 water, will be infinite in extent and others not, if the whole is infinite,
but such things would be the destruction of their contraries), and if
they are infinitely many and simple, and the places too are infinite,
then the elements will also be infinite; but if this is impossible and the
places are finite, then the whole will also necessarily be bounded.
In general it is impossible for there to be an infinite body and a place
for bodies if every perceptible body has either heaviness or lightness;
for a body will be carried either to the center or upward, but it is
impossible for the infinite, either the whole or the half of it, to be
affected in either of these ways. For how would you cut it in two?
Or how, in the infinite, will there be up and down, or extremity and
center? Also, every perceptible body is in a place, and of place there
are six forms,16 but it is impossible for these to be in the infinite body. 1 067a 30
And in general, if it is impossible for a place to be infinite, then it is also
impossible for a body; for what is in a place is somewhere, and this
means either up or down or any of the rest, and each of these is some
kind of limit. And the infinite is not the same thing in magnitude, in
motion, and in time, as though it were some one nature, but the one
that is derivative is called infinite as a consequence of the one that takes
precedence, as a motion is called so as a consequence of the magnitude
along which it moves or alters or grows, and the time on account of
the motion.
Chapter 11 One sort of thing that changes does so incidentally, in 1 067b

the sense that an educated person walks, and another sort is said to
change simply; on account of the changing of something that belongs
to it, such as those that change on account of their parts (for the body
gets well because the eye does), but there is something that is moved
primarily on account of itself, and this is what is moved in its own right.
And this is the same way also with the thing that causes motion, for it
does so either incidentally, or on account of a part, or in its own right,
and there is something that primarily causes motion, and something
that is moved, and also the time in which it is moved and that from
which and to which it is moved. But the forms and the attributes and 1 067b 1 0
the place, to which the moving things are moved, such as knowledge
and heat, are motionless; it is not heat that is a motion but the process
of heating. Change that is not incidental is not present in all things but
in contraries and what is between them and in contradictories, and
belief in this comes from considering examples.
A thing that changes does so either from one underlying thing to
another, or from what is not a subject to what is not another subject, or
from a subject to what is not that subject, or from what is not a subject
to that subject (and by" subject" I mean what is declared affirmatively),
so that there must be three kinds of change, since that from what is
not one subject to what is not another subject is not a change, for they 1 067b 20
are neither contraries nor is there a contradiction, because there is no
opposition between them. That which is from what is not a subject to a
contradictory subject is coming-into-being, simply coming-into-being
1 6 These are up and down, before and behind, right and left.
when the change is simply into that subject, or particular becoming

when it is a change of some particular attribute; that from a subject to
what is not that subject is destruction, simple passing away when the
change is simply out of that subject, or particular destruction when it
is out of something particular.
Now if what-is-not is meant in more than one way, and what is not
so because of [faulty1 combination or separation [in speech or thought1
does not admit of being moved, nor does what is by way of potency;
which is opposed to what is simply (for the not-white or not-good
still admit of being moved incidentally, since the not-white could be
1 067b 30 a human being, but what is simply not a this in no way admits of
it), then it is impossible for what-is-not to be moved. (And if this is
so, then it is also impossible for coming-into-being to be a motion, for
what passes into being is what is not. For however much it comes to be
incidentally, it is still true to say that not-being belongs to what simply
comes into being.) And it is likewise impossible that what-is-not be
at rest. These awkward consequences also follow if everything that is
moved is in a place, since what-is-not is not in a place, for it would then
be somewhere. And destruction is not a motion either, for the opposite
1 068a of a motion is either a motion or rest but destruction is the opposite of
coming-into-being. And since every motion is a change, and the kinds
of change mentioned are three, but of these those that result from
coming-into-being or destruction are not motions, and these are the
changes that are between contradictories, it is necessary that change
from one subject to another be the only sort of change that is motion.
And the underlying subjects are either contraries or in-between (for
let a deprivation also be set down as a contrary), and are declared
affirmatively, such as naked, baregummed, and black.17
Chapter 12 So if the ways of attributing being are divided into

thinghood, quality, place, acting or being acted upon, relation, and
1 068a 1 0 quantity,18 there are necessarily three kinds of motion, with respect to
1 7 A motion is always a continuous transition from one positive condition, through

in-between states, to its contrary, and hence is always rooted in what a thing is.
1 8 The eighth category, time, is omitted because it is not the end point of any motion
but that in which they all take place. See 1 067b 9-1 0. This listing is also untypical
in that most of the categories are expressed as general nouns (such as place) rather
than as interrogative terms made into substantives (such as the where). One should
the of-what-sort, the how-much, and the place. There is no motion with
respect to thinghood, because nothing is contrary to an independent
thing, nor of relation (since it is possible, when one of the two related
things changes, for the relation not to be true, even though the other
thing has not changed in any way, so that the motion of them is
incidental), nor is there a motion of acting and being acted upon, nor
of moving and being moved, because there is not a motion of a motion
or a coming into being of corning into being, or generally a change of
a change. For there could be two ways of there being a motion of a
motion, either in the sense that it is a motion of an underlying motion
(for example, a human being is in motion because he is changing from
pale to swarthy, so in that way too a motion is either heated or cooled or
alters its place or grows; but this is impossible, since change is not any 1 068a 20
of the things underlying change), or by way of some other underlying
thing's changing out of one change into a change of another form, as a
human being changes from sickness into health. But this is not possible
either, except incidentally. For every motion is a change from one thing
to another, and this is so also with coming into being and destruction,
except that these are changes into one sort of opposites, while motion
is a change into another sort. So at the same time someone is changing
from health into sickness, and from this change itself into another. But
it is clear that when he has become sick, he will have changed into
whatever condition it is (for he could have come to rest), and further
that this is not always into whatever happens along. And the other
change will be from something into something else, and so it will 1 068a 30
be the opposite change, getting well; otherwise it will be by having
been incidental, as there is a change from remembering to forgetting
because that to which they belong changes, at one time into knowledge,
at another into ignorance.
Also, it would go to infinity if there were to be a change of a change
and a corning into being of coming into being. And an earlier one would
be necessary if a later one were to be; for example, if a simple coming
into being at some time came into being, and the coming into being of 1 068b
it came into being, so that not yet would there be the thing that came
not read too much into these discrepancies, but look to the immediate context. (In a
somewhat similar way, in the last paragraph of Ch. 8 above, the same word is used for
chance in general and fortune in particular. Book XI adapts to its purposes arguments
that originate elsewhere, without rewriting them.)
228 Book XI (Book K) Chapter 1 2
into being simply, but a coming into being that was coming into being
beforehand, and this in turn came to be at some time, so that not yet
would there be the thing that was coming into being then. And since of
infinite things there is no first one, there would not be a first becoming,
and therefore no next one either, and then nothing could either come
into being or be moved or change. Further, to the same thing there
belongs a contrary motion and a state of rest, and both a coming into
being and a destruction; therefore what comes into being, whenever
it comes into coming-into-being, is at that time being destroyed, for
neither at the outset, nor after it has come to be, is it a thing coming
1 068b 1 0 into being, and what is being destroyed must be. Also, it is necessary
for material to underlie what becomes and what changes. What then
would it be? Just as body or soul is the thing that is altered, what in that
way is the thing that becomes motion or becoming? And again, what
is that toward which they are moved? For motion or becoming must
be of something, from something, to something. But how? For there
·could be no learning of learning, so neither could there be a coming
into being of coming into being.
And since there is no motion of thinghood or of relation or of acting
and being acted upon, it remains that there is motion with respect to
the of-what-sort, the how-much, and the place (for contrariety belongs
to each of these), and by the of-what-sort I mean not what is in the
thinghood of a thing (since then even the specific difference would
1 068b 20 be a quality), but something to which it is passive, by which a thing
is said to be either affected or unaffected.19 And what is motionless
is either that which is altogether incapable of being moved, or that
which is scarcely moved in a long time or begins slowly; or what is of
such a nature as to be moved and is capable of it, but is not moved at
some time when or place where and manner in which it is natural to
it, which is the only one of the motionless things that I speak of as at
rest, for rest is contrary to motion, and so would be a deprivation of
motion in that which admits of it.
Coincident in place are those things that are in one primary place,
and separate are those that are in different ones; touching are those
1 9 The fact that there is qualitative change does not mean that every qualitative
attribute of a thing is changeable. What belongs to its thinghood is part of what
actively maintains it as what it is; what changes and can be absent is only passively
present.
tillngs of which the extremities are coincident, and the in-between is

that at which a changing thing naturally arrives before it changes to
what is by nature last, when it changes continuously. What is contrary 1 068b 30
with respect to place is what is as far away as possible along a straight
line; next in series is that which, being after the beginning in position
or in form or in some other determinate way, has nothing of the same
kind between it and that to which it is next in series, such as lines if
it is a line or units if it is a unit or houses if it is a house (but notillng
prevents something else from being in-between). And what is next in
series is next in series to something, and is sometillng that follows, for
one is not next in series to two, nor the first day of the month to the 1 069a
second. That which, being next in series to something, is toucillng it,
is next to it.
Now since every change is between opposites, and these are con
traries or contradictories, but there is nothing between contradictories,
it is clear thatwhat is in-between is between contraries. The continuous
is the same as what is next to something, but I call things continuous
when the limits of each of them at which they are toucillng and hold
ing together have become one and the same, and so it is clear that the
continuous is among those things out of which some one thing natu
rally cornes into being as a result of the uniting. And it is clear too that
the first of these relations is next in series (for what is next in series is
not necessarily toucillng, but what is toucillng is next in series, and if 1 069a 1 0
things are continuous, they are toucillng, but if they are touching they
are not on that account continuous, and in those things in which there
is no contact, there is no growing into one). And so it is not possible for
a point and a numerical unit to be the same, since it belongs to points
to be [coincident],20 butto units not even to be touching, but to be next
in series, and with distinct points there is sometillng in-between, but
with units there is not.
20 Both here and at Physics 227a 29 Aristotle has the word "touching," but his
meaning is clear enough. These last two paragraphs have the effect of displaying
that the variable conditions of changing things belong to orderings as precise as the
successions in arithmetic and the continuities in geometry.

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Aristotle's

Qreen Lion Press

Introduction by Joe Sachs

Outline of the Argument of the Metaphysics xliii

Bibliography:· suggested Reading 299

Book II Any sequence of causes that succeeds in explaining anything

Book III A successful account of the causes of things must resolve a

Book IV If there is a single knowledge that encompasses all things

Book V Causal structures are reflected in the arrays of meanings that

The Central Argument

Book VIII Form is not an arrangement of parts but a being-at-work

Book IX The potencies in things are not mere possibilities, passive

Bridge to the Conclusion of the Inquiry

Book X Wholeness in its most complete form belongs to that of

Book XI There is much evidence of disorder among things. In the

Conclusion: the Source of Being

Book XIII Mathematical things are not sources of anything, either

Book. XIV The forms cannot exert causality as elements, by any

ava'YELV . . . lead back (not reduce)

a1Topi.a . . . impasse (not perplexity, difficulty)

apx{J . . . source (not principle)

BvvaJ.LL<;; . . . potency (not potentiality)

etraywy� . . . example (not induction)

vvv . . . now (not moment)

T68e n . . . this (not this somewhat)

II. English Glossary

four general kinds of qualities described in Categories Book VIII, these

alteration (aXXoi.wcrL<; alloiosis) Change of quality or sort, dependent

ambiguity (O!LWVV!LLa homonymia) The presence of more than one

uses the potencies of natural materials to counteract one another. The

articulation (AO'YOc;; logos) The gathering in speech of the intelligible

being-at-work (evep'YELa energeia) An ultimate idea, not definable by

being-at-work-staying-itself (EVTEAEXELa entelecheia) A fusion of the

effort of holding on in that condition), while at the same time punning

translated as " actuality," a word that refers to anything, however triv­

cause (aiT(a aitia) The source of responsibility for anything. It thus

chance (auTOjlaTov automaton or TlJXTJ tuchi!) Any incidental cause.

contradictory (<ivT(<j>aaLc; antiphasis) One of a pair of opposites which

contrary (evavT(ov enantion) One of a pair of opposites which can have

contemplation (9ewp(a theoria) The being-at-work of the intellect (vovc;

deprivation (crTt§plJO'L<; steresis) The absence in something of anything

example (e1Ta'Yill'Y� epagage) The perceptible particular, in which the in­

first philosophy (1rpiilT1] cjiLAoao<j>(a prate philosophia) The study of

form (IJ.op<j>� morphe or el8o<; eidos or iBea idea) Being-at-work (1050b

genus (revo<:: genos) A divisible kind or class. It might arise from

impasse (a1ropi.a aporia) A logical stalemate that seems to make a

incidental (KaT!I O'VJlPEPTJKOt; kata sumbebekos) Belonging to or hap­

lead back (O:v<iyeLV anagein) To produce an explanation while leaving

motion (KLVTJO'Lt; kinesis) The being-at-work-staying-itself of a potency

mover (KLVOVV kinoun) Whatever causes motion in something else.

is highly misleading; it implies that the cause of every motion is a

number (apL9!16c; arithmos) Any multitude, whether of perceptible

justice, for example, would not be a common element contained in

of-this-kind (1TOLOV poion) Being of one or another sort is a more

potency (8uva11L<:: dunamis) The innate tendency of anything to be at

primary (1TpWTTJ, lTpWTOV prate, proton) First in responsibility. It is

rest (�PEilLa eremia or O"Tcl<JL<:: stasis) Motionlessness in whatever is

separate (XWPLO'TOV choriston) Able to hang together as a whole, intact,

underlying thing (imoKELilEVOV hupokeimenon) That inwhich anything

translated as " actuality," a word that refers to anything, however triv

example (e1Ta'Yill'Y� epagage) The perceptible particular, in which the in

incidental (KaT!I O'VJlPEPTJKOt; kata sumbebekos) Belonging to or hap

Chapter 6 After the philosophic speculations that have been men

medical art, and we shall find other things spoken of in a sim

Chapter 3 Element means that out of which something is com