38—" 14 answers to the problem stated in 995» 13-18 and discussed in 997% 34—-998% 19. The question, however, is not the same. There it is whether there are substances other than the sensible ; here it is whether it is the business of copia to discuss the sensible substances or some others.
b 3. dHAov, sc. from A. g.
8. It isto be noted that ‘ third man’ has not here the technical sense in which it occurs in A. 990 17, Z. 1039% 2, M. 1079 13; the absence of the definite article in the present passage is significant. The phrase seems to have become a catchword which was used in various senses other than the originalone. Cf. A. 990? 17n.
14-21. This discussion of the question what science studies the matter of mathematical objects has no parallel in B. The question is not, what science studies mathematical objects (the answer to which is obviously ‘ mathematics’), but what science studies the tAy that under- lies mathematical objects. Thus the conclusion (l. 20) that meta- physics is the study in question does not contradict the statement in ]. 12 that metaphysics does not study mathematical objects.
15. THs Tov palnpatiKay Uns practically = space. It is the vAn vontyn Of which Aristotle has spoken in Z. 1036 9, where cf, n.
IQ. abtd tobTO Td yévos, i.e. dodeéis and émornpy.
2I—1060*1. Aristotle begins with the query raised in 995” 27-29
and discussed in 998* 20-14, whether the constituent elements or the universals are the dpxai studied by metaphysics, but he soon (Il. 27) passes to the query raised in 995 29-31 and discussed in 998” 14—999* 23, whether summa genera or infimae spectes are the dpxai. : 23. 74 Kadodpeva md tiwy ororxeta. Diels, Llementum, 17 fi., shows that the word is found (not before 370) in a tentatively meta- phorical sense in Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plato (Zheaet., Soph., Tim.).
Tait S€ TavTes evuTMdpXovTa Tois auVOdroLs TLHdaow, sc. while codia deals with immaterial entities (1. 14).
30, 38. For the notion of the cvvavaipotv cf. Top. iv. 2, vi. 4.
33. Stahopa 8 odSepia tod yévous petéxer. The genus is predicated not of the differentia but of the species, Zop. 144% 32.
tairy 8. Christ conjectures y’ for &, but 3° is sufficiently confirmed by the passages cited in Bz. /udex 167%7-12. Cf. B. 999% 27n.
35. 14 8 Eoyata tay ek Tob yevous, i.e. the zufimae species (as |. 38 shows), not the individuals, For droya used of cnfimae species cf. I. 10587 18.
310 Commentary
Recapitulation of the problems stated in B. 4—6-(ch. 2).
1060*g. (7) Is there anything apart from individual things? These are infinite in number, but on the other-hand the knowledge we are looking for cannot be of genera or species, which are the things that might be supposed to exist apart from individuals. Yet we seem to be looking for something independent which is not an attribute of any sensible thing.
1g. If there is such a substance, which sensible substances does it exist alongside of? Why of some more than others? Yet it would be absurd to suppose eternal substances as numerous as the sensible and perishable.
19. But if the principle we are looking for is zo¢ apart from bodies, matter might seem to have a strong claim; yet it exists only poten- tially. Form has a stronger claim, but it is perishable, so that apparently there is ~o eternal independent substance. Yet the best minds have always sought such a principle; indeed, without it how could there be any order?
27. (8) If there is such a principle common to eternal and perish- able things, why are some eternal and others not? If the principles are different, then (a) if the principle of perishables is eternal, why are they not eternal? (0) if it is perishable, it presupposes another principle, and so ad infinitum.
36. (9) If we posit the principles that seem most unchangeable, being and unity, (a) if they are of individual substances, how can they exist apart, as first principles must ; if they are, all things will be sub- stances, since being is predicable of all; but plainly not all things are substances.
b6. (4) Those who make unity the first principle and a substance, and generate number from it and from matter and make number a substance, cannot be right; for how can you think of two or any number as one?
12. (c) Lines, planes, &c., cannot be first principles, since they are mere divisions and limits and therefore cannot exist apart.
17. (¢d) The unit or the point cannot be a substance, since there is no generation of it.
1g. (10) All knowledge is of universals, but substance is not universal but individual; if there is knowledge of the first principles, how can substance be the first principle ?
2g. (11) If there is nothing apart from the concrete whole, such wholes are all perishable ; if there is something, it must be form ; now
in which cases will this exist apart? In some cases, e.g. that of a house, it evidently cannot.
28. (12) Are the first principles the same in form or in number? if in number, all things will be the same.
1060? 3-27 states the problem raised in B. 995> 31-36 and discussed in 999%24—- 24. There is first the question whether there is anything apart from individual things (3-13, 999% 24-32) ; then the question which sensible substances “have a corresponding separate substance (13-18, 999%32-55, » 17-20); the question whether, if the dpxy we are in search of is not separate, matter or form is more truly the adpx7 (19-24) is peculiar to K, and the arguments in 999 5— 16 are peculiar to B.
3. 74 Kad exaota, cf. B. 999% 26 n.
7. eipntor. The reference seems to be to 1059> 31-38.
15-16. The change of construction is awkward though natural. ‘Why should one suppose this other substance apfar/ from men or horses any more than another substance of the other animals’, &c.
between pure form and ei8os ody pepuypevov ; and Z. 1039) 20-2 23.
25. For ot xapueoraro. = ‘the most cultivated, refined people’, cf. A. 10759 26, De Resp. 480 29, &c.
27-36 states the problem raised in 996% 2-4 and discussed in 10008 5—1001% 3. K omits the historical discussion contained in 10008 g—b 20,
36-19 states the two problems raised in 9968 4-9, 12-15, and discussed in 1001® 4— 28, b 26—1002 11; thetwo problems are con- nected together by 1060 6-12.
b4. Bz.’s conjecture éora: is not necessary but is probable enough, and is confirmed by Al. 639. 37,640. 1.
5. kat evioy S¢ Kal To év, Really everything that is is one (1061 18); eviwv is used by way of caution. Alexander explains éviwy as meaning all things but numbers, but this is unlikely.
6-9. Tots... Pdokovow eivat, the Pythagoreans (A. 987% 18, B. 10014 10) and Plato (A. 987” 21, 9929, B. 1001@ 9):
8. tov dpiOpov yeryGou. mpdtoy, sc. and subsequently ra yewperpixa, Cf. 1. 12, B. ro01 17-25.
10. tav... dpiOpav Tay ouvOeTwy, not in the ordinary sense of com- posite as opposed to prime numbers. ‘The other numbers made out of the One and matter are meant.
13. émupavelas Tas mpdras, i.e. intelligible as opposed to sensible surfaces. For the sense of zparos cf. De An. 404 20.
taitd y. - J records the variant y’, which was conjectured indepen- dently by Bz. & and ydp seem to be both corruptions of this.
312 Commentary
18, odolas pev yap méons yéveors eort, ottypfis 8 odK éotw, It cannot be meant that all substances are subject.to generation; for what then of God? The meaning is given better in B. 10028 28-? 11. If a substance at one time is not and later ‘is,it comes into being by a process of generation, while points, lines, and planes come into being instantaneously by the division of lines, planes, and solids.
19-23 states the problem raised in 9969, 10 and discussed in 1003* 5-17, especially in ll. 13-17.
23-28 recurs to the problem discussed in 4 3-27.
27-28. éw éviev yap... oixlas. The meaning is that there are evidently no separate universals of negations (A. 990? 13), of relations (990> 16), or of manufactured objects (991? 6, A. 10707 14).
28-go states the problem raised in 996% 1, 2 and discussed in 999 24—1000% 4.
The subject of philosophical study (ch. 3).
1060» 31. Philosophy is concerned with being as such universally, but being has more than one meaning. If it is merely ambiguous it cannot be dealt with by one science; if there is some common meaning, it can.
36. It is like the terms ‘medical’ and ‘healthy’, all of whose meanings have some reference to the medical art and to health respectively. So too everything that is is an affection, state, dis- position, motion, &c., of being as such.
1o61° 10. Since all that is is referable to some one thing, all con- trarieties are referable to the primary differences of being—plurality and unity, likeness and unlikeness, &c. It matters not whether the reduction be to being or to unity, for the two are at any rate con- vertible.
18. All contraries are objects of the same science, and each of them implies privation. (How can terms admitting of a mean, like just and unjust, involve privation? The privation must be said to be not of the whole definition but of the zwfima species. If the just man is ‘one who by virtue of a state of will is obedient to the laws’, the unjust man need not be the very reverse of this but may be ‘ one who is in some respect deficient in obedience to the laws’; in this respect he suffers from a privation of justice.)
28. The mathematician abstracts from all sensible qualities and studies simply what is quantitative and continuous in one, two, or three dimensions, and its essential attributes.
bg. Similarly the study of the properties and contrarieties of being
as such is the task of no science but philosophy; not of physics, which studies things not gua being but gua sharing in motion, nor of dialectic or sophistic, which study the attributes of things that are, but not gua being.
11. Since all that is is so called by virtue of some one common character, and things so related can fall under one science, we have solved our problem, how there can be one science of many things which differ in genus.
This chapter answers to T. 1, 2, the substance of which it states in a much briefer form. In the first part of the chapter, 1060 31—1061% 28, the question raised in 1059% 20-23 is incidentally answered, and in the second part, 10614 28—-» 11, that raised in 1059* 29-34, though at the end (1061 15) it is only claimed that the first of the two problems has been solved.
1061* 15. eotwcay yap avtat TeDewpynpévan, cf. DT. 100422 n. Alexander here again refers to the De Bono.
20-28. The question is how contraries that admit of a middle A€yerax kata orepyow. If contraries are related as égis and orépyors, it might seem that they are the only possible conditions of the dexrixév. The answer is that the intermediate in such a case lacks not every element in the definition of the positive term but only the final differentia. Besides just men, who conform to the whole definition of ‘just ’, and unjust men, of whom no part of it is true, there are men who in some respect fail to conform to it, e. g. who obey the laws but not from the right egis. Such men are said to exhibit the privation of the reAXevtatov eldos (1. 23); i. e. they do not belong to the zufima spectes ‘just man’ ; they are lacking in the final differentia, though they may belong to some wider class (e.g. that of men obedient to the laws) which includes also just men.
22, Td To.aiTa, i.e. TH ava pecoV.
23. To TeAeuTatou dé eidoug: Alexander explains this as ‘the extreme form’, but reAevraios is used regularly of the zmfima spectes or differentia (B. 99530, A. 10185, Z. 1038419, P.A. 643% 22, 35, 6443); and further rod dAov Aoyou suggests the splitting up of the definition into genus and differentiae.
24. et €otw 6 Bixaros Kal” ey Twd TwevPapxiKds Tots vopors, ‘This is the just man in the wider sense of justice, explained in LZ. VV. 1129> 1I—1130* 13.
25. 6 &Buxos is here used of the person who is in any degree unjust, i.e. of 6 dv& pécov, though in ]. 22 rod ddiékov meant the completely unjust man.
33. Tov pev ep’ ev, i.e. ray pev ro ed’ ev ouvexes.
b5. tas évavtidcets adtod, cf. B. 995) 20-27 n.
proaopias. dirocodia in the sense of rpwrn PiArocodia is rare, but giAdcodos occurs in the corresponding sense in 1003> 19, 1004" 34,