Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, chapter 6, section 2

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The originators¹ of this theory, then, used not to postulate Ideas of groups of things in which they posited² an order of priority and posteriority³ （for which reason they did not construct an Idea of numbers in general）. But Good is predicated alike in the Categories of Substance, of Quality, and Relation; yet the Absolute,⁴ or Substance, is prior in nature to the Relative, which seems to be a sort of offshoot or ‘accident’ of Substance; so that there cannot be a common Idea corresponding to the absolutely good and the relatively good.

1 Or perhaps ‘importers’ from the Pythagoreans of S. Italy.

2 Perhaps ‘we posit’.

3 A is ‘prior in nature’ （though not necessarily in time） to B, when A can exist without B but not B without A; and they cannot then be on a par as members of one class.

4 Lit. ‘that which is by itself’.

Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.

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