32. Kal Adyw Kat yvdcer kat xpdvw. Alexander takes rév . . povyn ll. 33, 34 to be explanatory of ypdvw. Substance is prior to the attributes it successively possesses, as a jar is prior to the wines that successively fill it. What Aristotle says, however, is ‘for none of the other categories can exist apart; substance alone can’. Priority in this sense is elsewhere distinguished from priority in time (Caf. 14° 26-35, Phys. 260% 18) and is described in distinction from it as priority xara diow Kal oiciay (A. 1018? 14, 1o19* 2). The reading of the lemma in Asc. (kal dice Kail Adyw Kal xpdvw Kal yvwoe) and that of Bessarion and the Aldine edition (kai Adyw kat yrooe Kal xpove kal pvoer) are no doubt corrections designed to meet this difficulty, and do not mend matters, since they leave ypévw unexplained. Aristotle is by no means careful to preserve the same appellations for the various senses of ‘ prior’; thus ‘ prior in dvais’ in Cat. 145, Phys. 261° 14, 265° 22, P. A. 646% 26, A. 989° 16, ‘prior in otata’ in Phys. 260” 19, 261% 19, G. A. 742222, ©, 10508 4, M. 107719, Rhef. 1392% 20 are used in a different sense from that which they bear in the passages
Z, I. 1028216 — 1028) 5 161
already mentioned, It seems best to suppose with Alexander that the next words (Il. 33 f.) are meant to explain ypéve. That which can exist without other things while they cannot exist without it may naturally be said to exist before other things.
Priority Adyw and priority yvdoe are not elsewhere distinguished. In 1038 27 we have priority Ady, xpove, yevéeoer; in @. 1049) 11 hoyw, ovoia, xpovy ; in Phys. 265% 22 dice, Aoyw, xpovy. In A. 1018) 31 priority xara tov Adyov is one form of priority ry yvooe; in @. 1049>16f. the two are identified. But here they seem to be distinguished from each other; as xaé before ypovm means ‘and’, it is difficult to suppose that cai before yvwéoe means ‘i.e.’ Alexander is probably right in supposing that ll. 34-36 refer to Adyw and Il. 36-) 2 to yore.
34. Aristotle here says that substance is rpGrov Ady as compared with the other categories. In M. 1077" 6 he says 76 Aevxoy is prior in Adyos to 6 AevKds avOpwros (cf. A. 1018 34). The two statements are quite compatible. ‘White’ is prior to ‘ white man’ because you can define white without including the definition of white man, and cannot define white man without including the definition of white. But body is prior to white because you can define it without including the definition of white, and cannot define white without including the definition of surface nor surface without including the definition of body. All attributes involve in the end substances and cannot be defined without including their definition. The passages are to be reconciled, then, not as Bz. seems to hold by interpreting Adyos differently, but by observing that white man is posterior to white simply because man is not the substance to which white belongs Zer se,
36-2. Bz. points out that it is not substance as distinct from attributes, but the essence of a thing as distinct from its other attributes, that is here shown to be primary in yvéou.s, The fact is that in the notion of the first category these two notions are some- what unsatisfactorily blended. This has been already noticed in l. 11 n., and becomes increasingly apparent throughout the book. In b 1, 2 Aristotle points out that even things in categories other than substance have a ri éoru, a quasi-substance, which is to them as the substance of man is to man. ‘This notion is developed in 10308 17-27,
b4, ot pev év, the schools of Miletus and Elea.
5. ot pev memepacpéva, the Pythagoreans, and Empedocles and his followers; ot $€ dmevpa, Anaxagoras and the atomists.
Various opinions as to the denotation of substance (ch, 2).
1028» 8, (1) Substance is thought to belong most evidently to bodies—animals and plants and their parts, the elements and their 2578-2 ; M
162 Commentary
parts and what is composed of them, e, g. the physical universe and the stars.
16. (2) Some think the limits of body—surface, line, point, and unit—are more truly substances. - 1g. (3) Some think there are eternal things more numerous and more real than the sensibles, e.g. (a) Plato thinks Forms and mathematical objects are two other kinds of substance.
21. (4) Speusippus thinks there are many kinds of substance, each with its own first principles—numbers, spatial magnitudes, soul, &c.
24. (c) Some think that Forms and numbers are of the same kind, but that there are other kinds dependent on this—lines, planes, &c., ending with the class of sensibles.
27. These views we must examine, after first outlining the nature of substance.
1028) 11, Kal tay TovodTwv Exaotoy. For the probable meaning cf. H. 10428 n.
12-13. 7] poptwy...adrtod. The physical universe (for this sense of obpavés cf. Bz. Index 541” 56—5 42% 17) is composed of the totality of natural bodies or elements (De Cae/o 278" 21); its parts are composed of parts of this totality.
Bz. conjectures rwév or éviwv for poptwy. But this suggestion is not, as he supposes, supported by Alexander, who evidently read popiwy
462. 6). 14. I have inserted here, from T, % todrwv tes 7 kal aAdaw. EJ Asc. have 7 rovrwv tives 7) Kal GAdAwv, AP 7} rovTwv Twes Kal GAdwv, where dAAwv (sc. twés) would be difficult to defend. With % «at dAAau } TovTwv twes 7% Kat dou 7} TovTwv before them, it is natural that the writers of the inferior manuscripts should have passed from the first dAAa to the second, instead of the first, 7 rovrwv. The possibilities stated by Aristotle are that the complete list of substances should include— (1) only those already named, 2) those and others, 4 only some of those already named, (4) some of those already named and some others (7) kal dau), (5) only certain others.
16, tot, sc. Pythagoreans. The Platonic view is given as distinct from this in], 19. The Pythagorean belief that planes, lines, points, and units are substances contained in bodies is distinguished from the Platonic view that there are substances apart from bodies. For the former view cf, B. 1002 4.
18. ot pév, the pre-Socratics, cf. B. 100248.
Ig. of 8... dtSia. | aAefw may mean (1) more numerous than sensible substances (cf. A. ggo 4) or (2) of more than one kind. Again we may translate (1) ‘eternal entities more in number and more
$T. Alberts College Libra
real’, or (2), with a comma after uaAXoy, ‘ entities more in number and more truly substances, being eternal’. The first alternative in each case seems preferable. a@A\ov must not be taken with aida, for eternality is not a matter of degree. :
21. Speusippus’ doctrine is referred to in M. 1076% 21, 1080? 14, 1085? 31, N. 1091%34. It is this doctrine that makes the nature of things ‘episodic, like a bad tragedy’ (A. 10761, N, rogo? 19). The dpyai of numbers were unity and plurality (M. 1085> 5, 1087» 6, 8, 27, 30, N. tog» 31, 109235); the dpxad of magnitudes were the point and ‘a matter akin to plurality but distinct from it’ (M. 1085? 32). E. Frank, in Plato u.d. sogenannien Pythagoreer, 245-251, holds that Speusippus recognized ten stages in the structure of the universe, viz. (1) absolute unity, (2) absolute plurality, (3) number, (4) spatial mag- nitudes, (5) perceptible bodies, (6) the soul, (7) reason, (8) desire, (9) movement, (10) the good. This view is, however, largely con- jectural.
24. évor S€. This is the school of Xenocrates (so Asc.); for the evidence of this cf. M. 1076220 n. Other references to the view are found in A. 1069% 35, M. ro8o0? 22, 28, 108625, N. rogo> 28, 31; it is in M. 1083 2 called the worst of the Platonic views about numbers.
26-27. péxpt . . . aioOyrd. Theophr. fr. xii. 12 gives Xenocrates credit for carrying out his explanation of the universe more thoroughly than Plato and Speusippus ; otros yap dravta rws wepiriGnoe rept Tov Koopov, Spotws aicGyTa cal voyra Kal paGynmatixad Kat ere di) Ta Geta. According to Sextus Empiricus (Adv. A/azh. vii. 147) he distinguished mi aicOyriy otciar (riv évtos otpavot), tiv voyTiy (Tar éxrds otpavod), : zy atvGerov Kai dogacrijy (riv airod Tod ovpavod).
28-31. The question whether there are any substances rapa tas aio@yras is distinguished from the question whether there is a ywpior) oveia wapa Tas aicGyras. ‘The first is the question whether there are any substances besides sensible substances—e.g. forms of sensible substances ; the second is the question whether there is any substance capable of separate exisience besides the sensible substances, i.e. any pure substantial form.
SUBSTANCE AS SUBSTRATUM (ch. 3).
1028 33. At least four things are said to be substance : (A) essence, (B) the universal, (C) the genus, (D) the substratum. 36. (D) The substratum is that which is subject of everything else, never predicate; it is thought to be, most of all things, substance. M2
164 Commentary
102922. In one sense matter, in another sense form, in another sense their compound, is said to be the substratum,
5. If form is prior to matter, it is prior to their compound,
7. Our account of substance as that which is always subject is inadequate ; for it would follow that matter is substance, since it is what persists when all attributes are taken away,
20. By matter I mean that which in itself is not any particular thing nor of any quantity nor otherwise determined. The other attributes are predicated of substance, and substance of matter,
27. But substance must be capable of separate existence and be a ‘this’, so that form, and the compound of form and matter, are more truly substance than matter is.
30. The compound we defer, as posterior in nature and familiar; we will study form, the most difficult of the three. We look for it first in certain generally recognized sensible substances.
bg. For the order of learning is from the less intelligible by nature and more intelligible to us to the more intelligible by nature.
1028» 34-36. 16 tI fv etvan is examined in chs. 4—6, 10-12; 76 Kabddou in chs. 13, 143 76 Groke(yevovy in ch. 3. 16 yévos is nowhere separately examined in Z. At the beginning of ch. 13 Aristotle says that, as he has examined the essence and the substratum, it remains to examine the claim of the universal to be substance. From this it appears that the genus has dropped out of view. But in fact chs. 13, 14 serve as an examination of genus as well as of the universal. Every genus is a universal (though the converse is not true, differentiae and properties being also included among universals), and if the universal cannot be substance, genus cannot be co.
1029* 1-28. The two characteristics of substance here signalized as primary—that of being ultimate subject of predication and that of having separate individual existence—are the same two that are mentioned in A. 1017) 23-26.
2. The treatment of 76 izroxe/uevoy as ambiguous, meaning (1) matter and (2) the concrete unity of matter and form, is natural, and common enough in Aristotle (matter underlies actuality or form, the concrete individual underlies its affections or accidents, |. 23, cf. 10385); but it is surprising to find (3) form put forward as one of its meanings. The same suggestion, however, occurs in H. 1042228. Aristotle’s meaning is that the form or essence, instead of the concrete individual, may be thought to be what underlies properties and accidents ; cf. the description of the soul as the toxeiuevoy of life, A. 1022832. The reference to form, then, is not as Bz. suggests a slip due to the constant association of matter, form, and the unity of the two, in Aristotle’s thought. Nor is the fact that form is discussed under the head of ri jv etva, not of troxeiyevov (Bz. 301) a real objection to its
presence here. Substratum and essence present themselves with the universal and genus as rival candidates for the position of substance. If essence turns out to be a kind of substratum, the original division into four turns out to be a cross-division ; but we already know from the case of 76 xadAov and 76 yévos that that is so. The original four- fold division is merely a prima _facze one.
8: 1 popdy. popdy is often identified with «fos and ri Av clvas, but means primarily sensible shape; cf. ro cxjpua THs idéas |. 4, rHV ev TO aicOytd popdyv 1033" 6.