Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| [1042a] From what has been said we must now draw our conclusions, and, gathering the sum of it, put a final point on it. It has been said, then, that what is sought for substances are their causes, principles, and elements. Now some substances are agreed on by everyone, while about some others certain thinkers have made their own separate declarations: agreed on are the natural substances, such as fire, earth, water, air, and the other simple bodies, then plants and their parts, and animals and the parts of animals, and finally the heaven and the parts of the heaven; but some thinkers separately say that the forms and the objects of mathematics are substances. Others turn out to hold, on the basis of their arguments, that still other things are substances -- the essence and the substratum; and again, in another way, that the genus is substance rather than the species, and the universal rather than the particulars; and with the universal and the genus the Ideas too are connected (for by the same reasoning they are held to be substances). And since the essence is substance, and the account of this is the definition, for this reason a determination has been made concerning definition and concerning what belongs to a thing in its own right; and since a definition is an account, and an account has parts, it was necessary also to look into the question of parts, which parts belong to the substance and which do not, and whether these same parts also belong to the definition.
2| Further, then, neither the universal nor the genus is substance; but about the Ideas and the objects of mathematics we must inquire later, for it is beside the perceptible substances that some say these exist. For now let us go over the substances that are agreed on. These are the perceptible ones; and all perceptible substances have matter. Now the substratum is substance -- in one sense the matter (and by matter I mean that which, not being a particular thing in actuality, is a particular thing in potentiality), in another sense the account and the shape, which, being a particular thing, is separable in account; and third, the thing composed of these, of which alone there is coming-to-be and passing-away, and which is separable without qualification; for of the substances that exist according to the account, some are separable and some are not. That matter too is substance is clear: for in all the opposed kinds of change there is something that underlies the changes, for example in respect of place, what is now here and again elsewhere, and in respect of growth, what is now of such a size and again smaller or larger, and in respect of alteration, what is now healthy and again sick:
3| [1042b] And the same holds with respect to substance: what is now in the process of coming to be is again, at another time, in the process of passing away, and what is now a subject in the sense of a this is again, at another time, a subject in the sense of a privation. And the other kinds of change follow upon this one, but this one does not follow upon one or two of the others; for it is not necessary that whatever has matter for locomotion should also have matter for coming to be and passing away. Now the difference between coming to be without qualification and coming to be in a qualified sense has been stated in the works on nature. But since substance in the sense of subject and matter is agreed upon, and this is the substance that is potential, it remains to say what the substance of perceptible things is as actuality. Now Democritus seems to have thought there are three differentiae (for the underlying body, the matter, is one and the same, but things differ either by rhythm, which is shape, or by turning, which is position, or by inter-contact, which is arrangement): but there evidently are many differentiae. For example, some things are said to differ by composition of their matter, as many as are by blending, like honey-water; others by binding, like a bundle of sticks; others by gluing, like a book; others by nailing, like a chest; others by several of these together; others by position, like threshold and lintel (for these differ by being situated in a certain way); others by time, like dinner and breakfast; others by place, like the winds;
4| and others by the affections proper to perceptible things, such as hardness and softness, density and rarity, dryness and wetness — some things by some of these, others by all of them — and in general some by excess, others by deficiency. So it is clear that 'is' is also spoken of in just as many ways: for a threshold is because it is situated thus, and to be means to be situated in this way, and for ice to be is to have been condensed thus. And for some things being will be defined by all of these together, some being mixed, some blended, some bound, some condensed, some using the other differentiae, as with a hand or a foot. We must therefore grasp the genera of the differentiae (for these will be the principles of being), for example those that differ by the more and the less, or by dense and rare and other such things; for all of these are excess and deficiency. And if a thing differs by shape or by smoothness and roughness, all of these are excess and deficiency of straight and curved. And for other things being will be being mixed, and not-being will be the opposite of this.
5| [1043a] It is clear from this, then, that if substance is the cause of each thing's being, we must look among these differentiae for what is the cause of the being of each of these things. None of them by itself, then, nor any combination of them, is substance, yet in each case there is something analogous to substance; and just as in the case of substances what is predicated of the matter is the actuality itself, so too, most of all, in the other definitions. For example, if we had to define a threshold, we should say: wood or stone situated in such-and-such a way; and a house: bricks and wood situated in such-and-such a way (or, in some cases, we should add also the end for the sake of which); and if ice: water congealed or condensed in such-and-such a way; and a musical concord: a mixture of high and low pitch of such-and-such a kind; and the same way in the other cases too. It is clear from this, then, that the actuality is different for different matter, and so is the account. For in some cases it is composition, in others mixture, in others some other of the things mentioned. Hence, among those who give definitions, those who say what a house is by saying that it is stones, bricks, and wood are speaking of the house potentially, for these are matter; those who propose instead that it is a receptacle for sheltering possessions and bodies, or something else of this kind, are stating the actuality; and those who combine both of these are stating the third kind of substance, the one composed of these (for the account given through the differentiae seems to be that of the form and the actuality, while the account given from the constituents seems to be rather that of the matter):
6| and likewise the definitions Archytas used to accept were of this same sort, for they are of the combination of both. For example, what is windlessness? Stillness in a quantity of air: the air is the matter, but the actuality and substance is the stillness. What is a calm sea? Levelness of the sea: the underlying thing as matter is the sea, while the actuality and the shape is the levelness. It is clear, then, from what has been said, what perceptible substance is, and in what way: for one kind is as matter, another as shape and actuality, and the third is the one composed of these. And we must not fail to notice that sometimes it escapes notice whether the name signifies the composite substance or the actuality and the shape — for example, whether 'house' signifies the compound, that it is a shelter made of bricks and stones situated thus, or the actuality and the form, that it is a shelter; and whether a line is a duality in length, or simply that it is a duality; and whether an animal is a soul in a body, or simply a soul — for this is the substance and actuality of a certain body. 'Animal' could apply to both, not as being spoken of by a single account, but as related to one thing. But these questions, though they matter for another purpose, matter not at all for the inquiry into perceptible substance:
7| [1043b] for the essence belongs to the form and the actuality. For soul and being-a-soul are the same, but man and being-a-man are not the same, unless the soul too is to be called man; and so in this way for one thing they are the same, for another they are not. Now if we investigate it, a syllable does not appear to be its letters plus composition, nor does a house appear to be bricks plus composition. And this is correct: for the composition or mixture is not made up of the very things of which it is the composition or mixture. And likewise none of the other cases either — for example, if the threshold is defined by its position, the position does not come from the threshold, but rather the threshold from the position. Nor, then, is man the animal plus two-footed, but there must be something besides these, if these are matter — something that is neither an element nor made of an element, but is the substance; and it is this that people leave out when they speak of the matter. If, then, this is the cause of the thing's being, and this is substance, they would not be stating the substance itself. (This substance must necessarily be either eternal, or perishable without ever perishing, and must have come to be without ever coming to be. It has been shown and made clear elsewhere that no one makes or generates the form, but rather it is the this that is made, and what comes to be is the compound of these.
8| Whether the substances of perishable things are separable is not yet at all clear; except that it is clear that at least for some of them it is not possible — namely, all those that cannot exist apart from the particular things, such as a house or a piece of furniture. Perhaps, then, neither these things themselves nor any of the other things that are not constituted by nature are substances at all; for one might hold that nature alone is the substance present in perishable things.) So the puzzle that the followers of Antisthenes and other such unschooled people used to raise has some point to it — namely, that it is not possible to define what a thing is (for they said the definition is a long account), but it is possible even to teach what sort of thing something is — for example, of silver, not what it is, but that it is like tin. So of substance there is one kind of which a definition and an account can exist, namely the composite kind, whether it is perceptible or intelligible; but of the primary constituents from which this composite is made, there can no longer be a definition, if indeed a defining account signifies something predicated of something, and one part must be, as it were, matter and the other, form. And it is clear too why, if substances are in some way numbers, they are so in this way and not, as some say, numbers of units: for a definition too is a kind of number — for it is divisible, and divisible into indivisible parts (since accounts are not infinite), and number too is of this kind.
9| And just as, when something is taken away or added to the units a number consists of, the number is no longer the same but a different one, even if the smallest amount is taken away or added, [1044a] so too the definition and the essence will no longer be the same if something is taken away or added. And the number must be something by which it is one, which people now are unable to say — by what it is one, if indeed it is one (for either it is not one but like a heap, or, if it is one, one must say what it is that makes it one out of many): and the definition too is one, and likewise they cannot say this either. And this happens reasonably: for by the same argument, substance too is one in this way, but not as some say, as being a kind of unit or point, but each substance is a realization and a nature of a certain kind. And just as number does not admit of more and less, neither does substance according to form, but if any substance does, it is the substance taken along with matter. Concerning the coming-to-be and passing-away of what are called substances, then — how it is possible and how impossible — and concerning the reduction to number, let this much stand as determined. But concerning material substance one must not overlook that, even if all things come from the same primary thing, or from the same things as primary, and the same matter is the principle for the things that come to be, nevertheless there is a matter proper to each thing — for example, the primary matter of phlegm is the sweet or the fatty, and of bile the bitter, or certain other things:
10| though perhaps these too come from the same thing. There come to be several matters of the same thing when one is the matter of the other — for example phlegm comes from the fatty and the sweet if the fatty comes from the sweet, and comes from bile in that bile is resolved into its primary matter. For 'this from that' is said in two ways: either because the one will be prior in the process, or because the other, when resolved, goes back to the starting point. And it is possible, when the matter is one, for different things to come to be from it because of the moving cause — for example, from wood come both a chest and a bed. But for some things, since they are different, the matter is necessarily different — for example a saw could not come to be from wood, nor is this within the power of the moving cause: for it will not make a saw out of wool or wood. But if it is indeed possible to make the same thing out of different matter, clearly the craft and the principle as mover are the same; for if both the matter and the mover are different, so too is the thing that has come to be. So whenever one seeks the cause, since causes are spoken of in several ways, one must state all the causes that are possible. For example, what is the cause of a human being as matter? Is it the menstrual fluid? What is the cause as mover? Is it the seed? What is the cause as form?
11| The essence. What is the cause as that for the sake of which? The end. [1044b] But perhaps these two are the same. And one must state the nearest causes. What is the matter? Not fire or earth, but the matter proper to the thing. Concerning natural and generable substances, then, one must proceed in this way if one is to proceed correctly, given that these are indeed the causes, and this many in number, and that one must know the causes: but in the case of substances that are natural yet eternal, the account is different. For perhaps some of them have no matter, or not matter of that kind but only matter movable in respect of place. Nor, again, do things that exist by nature but are not substances have matter — rather, the substance is their underlying subject. For example, what is the cause of an eclipse, what is its matter? For there is none — rather the moon is the thing that is affected. What is the cause as that which moved and destroyed the light? The earth. And perhaps there is no cause as that for the sake of which. The cause as form is the account, but it is unclear unless the account includes the cause. For example, what is an eclipse? A privation of light. But if one adds 'coming about through the earth's being in between,' this is the account together with the cause. In the case of sleep it is unclear what is the first thing affected. Is it that the animal is affected? Yes, but the animal in respect of what, and what is the first part affected?
12| The heart, or something else. Then, by what is it affected? Then, what is the affection — the affection of that part, and not of the whole? Is it that it is a certain kind of immobility? Yes, but this immobility comes about through that first part being affected in what way? Now since some things exist and do not exist without coming-to-be and passing-away — for example points, if indeed they exist, and forms in general (for it is not the white that comes to be, but the wood that becomes white, if indeed everything that comes to be comes to be from something and as some thing) — not all contraries would come to be out of one another, but a white man comes from a black man, and white comes from black, in different ways: nor does everything have matter, but only things for which there is coming-to-be and change into one another; things that exist or do not exist without changing have no matter for this. There is a puzzle as to how the matter of each thing stands with respect to its contraries. For example, if the body is potentially healthy, and disease is contrary to health, are both potentially present? And is water potentially both wine and vinegar? Or is it the matter of the one in respect of the state and the form, and of the other in respect of privation and of destruction contrary to nature? And there is also a puzzle as to why wine is not the matter of vinegar, nor potentially vinegar (although vinegar does come to be from it), and why the living thing is not potentially a corpse.
13| Or rather, no — these are destructions that occur accidentally, [1045a] and it is the very matter of the animal that, by way of destruction, is the potentiality and matter of the corpse, and likewise the water is the matter of the vinegar; for these arise from those in the way that night arises from day. And in all such cases where things change into one another in this way, one must go back to the matter — for example, if an animal is to come from a corpse, it must first go back to the matter, and then in this way become an animal; and vinegar must go back to water, and then in this way become wine. Concerning the puzzle mentioned earlier, about definitions and about numbers — what is the cause of their being one? For in the case of all things that have several parts, and where the whole is not like a heap but is something over and above the parts, there is some cause — since even among bodies, in some cases contact is the cause of their being one, in others viscosity or some other affection of that kind. But a definition is a single account, not by way of a connective, as the Iliad is, but by being the account of one thing. What, then, is it that makes man one, and why is he one and not many — for example both animal and two-footed — especially if, as some say, there is an animal itself and a two-footed itself? For why is a human not those things themselves, and human beings will exist by participation not in man, nor in one thing, but in two, animal and two-footed, and in general man would not be one but several things, animal and two-footed?
14| It is clear, then, that for those who proceed in the way they are accustomed to define and speak, it is not possible to give an account and resolve the puzzle; but if, as we say, one part is matter and the other is form, and one is potentially and the other actually, what is being sought would no longer seem to be a puzzle. For this puzzle is the very same one even if the definition of 'cloak' were 'round bronze'; for this name would be a sign standing for that account, so that what is being sought is what is the cause of the round and the bronze being one. So it no longer appears to be a puzzle, because one part is matter and the other is form. What, then, is the cause of this — of what is potentially so being actually so, apart from the agent that makes it so, in cases where there is coming-to-be? For there is no other cause of the potential sphere's being actually a sphere, but this was the essence of each of them. And of matter, some is intelligible and some perceptible, and always, of the account, part is matter and part is actuality — for example, the circle is a plane figure. But things that have no matter, neither intelligible nor perceptible, are each immediately just a one, whatever it is,
15| [1045b] just as it is also a certain being, a this, a quality, a quantity — which is why neither being nor the one is present in definitions —, so too the essence is straightaway a certain one, just as it is also a certain being — which is why there is no other cause of its being one, for any of these, nor of its being a certain being: for straightaway each thing is a certain being and a certain one, not as being in a genus, the genus "being" or the genus "one," nor as though being and one were separate from the particulars. And it is because of this puzzle that some speak of participation, and are puzzled as to what the cause of the participation is and what participating is; others speak of a communion of the soul, as Lycophron says that knowledge is a communion of knowing and of the soul; others say that living is a composition or a binding-together of the soul with the body. Yet the same account applies in all cases: for being healthy too will then be a communion or a binding-together or a composition of the soul and health, and the bronze's being triangular will be a composition of bronze and triangle, and being white will be a composition of surface and whiteness. The cause is that people go looking for a unifying account and a differentia between potentiality and actuality. But, as has been said, the last matter and the shape are the same thing, and one — the one potentially, the other actually — so that seeking what the cause is of the one, and of its being one, is like seeking this in general: for each thing is a certain one, and what is potential and what is actual are in a way one, so that there is no cause here other than something that has moved a thing from potentiality into actuality, if there is anything of the kind. And all things that do not have matter are, without qualification, straightaway a certain one.