Categoria: Tratado 43 (VI,2)

8. We cannot indeed escape positing these three, Being, Motion, Stability, once it is the fact that the Intellect discerns them as separates; and if it thinks of them at all, it posits them by that very thinking; if they are thought, they exist. Things whose existence is bound up with Matter have no being…

22. We may here adduce the pregnant words of Plato: “Inasmuch as Intellect perceives the variety and plurality of the Forms present in the complete Living Being….” The words apply equally to Soul; Soul is subsequent to Intellect, yet by its very nature it involves Intellect in itself and perceives more clearly in that prior.…

4. If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it holds in the universe, surely we should take some sample of body, say stone, and examine into what constituents it may be divided. There would be what we think of as the substrate of stone, its quantity – in this case,…

7. What, then, are the several entities observable in this plurality? We have found Substance (Essence) and life simultaneously present in Soul. Now, this Substance is a common property of Soul, but life, common to all souls, differs in that it is a property of Intellect also. Having thus introduced Intellect and its life we…

9. The above considerations – to which others, doubtless, might be added – suffice to show that these five are primary genera. But that they are the only primary genera, that there are no others, how can we be confident of this? Why do we not add unity to them? Quantity? Quality? Relation, and all…

13. We turn to ask why Quantity is not included among the primary genera, and Quality also. Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual Being (Being-in-Act), since it is its life; with Motion, Stability too gained its foothold in Reality; with these are…

19. Having established our four primary genera, it remains for us to enquire whether each of them of itself alone produces species. And especially, can Being be divided independently, that is without drawing upon the other genera? Surely not: the differentiae must come from outside the genus differentiated: they must be differentiae of Being proper,…

1. We have examined the proposed “ten genera”: we have discussed also the theory which gathers the total of things into one genus and to this subordinates what may be thought of as its four species. The next step is, naturally, to expound our own views and to try to show the agreement of our…

2. In asserting that Being is not a unity, we do not mean to imply a definite number of existences; the number may well be infinite: we mean simply that it is many as well as one, that it is, so to speak, a diversified unity, a plurality in unity. It follows that either the…

3. We assert, then, a plurality of Existents, but a plurality not fortuitous and therefore a plurality deriving from a unity. But even admitting this derivation from a unity – a unity however not predicated of them in respect of their essential being – there is, surely, no reason why each of these Existents, distinct…

10. In what sense is the particular manifestation of Being a unity? Clearly, in so far as it is one thing, it forfeits its unity; with “one” and “thing” we have already plurality. No species can be a unity in more than an equivocal sense: a species is a plurality, so that the “unity” here…

11. We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is contained in Being. How is what is termed the “dividing” effected – especially the dividing of the genera Being and unity? Is it the same division, or is it different in the two cases? First then: In what sense, precisely, is any given…

12. Enough upon that side of the question. But how does the perfection (goodness) of numbers, lifeless things, depend upon their particular unity? Just as all other inanimates find their perfection in their unity. If it should be objected that numbers are simply non-existent, we should point out that our discussion is concerned (not with…

14. Why is Quality, again, not included among the Primaries? Because like Quantity it is a posterior, subsequent to Substance. Primary Substance must necessarily contain Quantity and Quality as its consequents; it cannot owe its subsistence to them, or require them for its completion: that would make it posterior to Quality and Quantity. Now in…

15. How then do the four genera complete Substance without qualifying it or even particularizing it? It has been observed that Being is primary, and it is clear that none of the four – Motion, Stability, Difference, Identity – is distinct from it. That this Motion does not produce Quality is doubtless also clear, but…

16. As for Relation, manifestly an offshoot, how can it be included among primaries? Relation is of thing ranged against thing; it is not self-pivoted, but looks outward. Place and Date are still more remote from Being. Place denotes the presence of one entity within another, so that it involves a duality; but a genus…

17. Why are not beauty, goodness and the virtues, together with knowledge and intelligence, included among the primary genera? If by goodness we mean The First – what we call the Principle of Goodness, the Principle of which we can predicate nothing, giving it this name only because we have no other means of indicating…

18. To pass to the consideration of beauty: If by beauty we mean the primary Beauty, the same or similar arguments will apply here as to goodness: and if the beauty in the Ideal-Form is, as it were, an effulgence (from that primary Beauty), we may observe that it is not identical in all participants…