[
1060b]
[1]
how can they be
separate and independent? but the eternal and primary principles for
which we are looking are of this nature.(b) If, however, each of them denotes a
particular thing and a substance, then all existing things are
substances; for Being is predicated of everything, and Unity also of
some things.But that all
things are substances is false. (c) As for those who maintain that
Unity is the first principle and a substance, and who generate number
from Unity and matter as their first product, and assert that it is a
substance, how can their theory be true? How are we to conceive of 2
and each of the other numbers thus composed, as one? On this point
they give no explanation; nor is it easy to give one.
But
if we posit lines or the things derived from them (I mean surfaces in
the primary sense
1) as principles,
2 these at least are not separately
existing substances, but sections and divisions, the former of
surfaces and the latter of bodies (and points are sections and
divisions of lines); and further they are limits of these same things.
All these things are integral parts of something else, and not one of
them exists separately.Further, how are we to suppose that there is a substance of unity or
a point? for in the case of every substance
3 there is a process of
generation, but in the case of the point there is not; for the point
is a division.
[20]
It is a perplexing fact also that
whereas every science treats of universals and types, substance is not
a universal thing, but rather a particular and separable thing; so
that if there is a science that deals with first principles, how can
we suppose that substance is a first principle?
4 Again, is there anything besides the concrete whole (I mean the
matter and the form in combination) or not?
5 If not, all things in the nature of matter are
perishable; but if there is something, it must be the form or shape.
It is hard to determine in what cases this is possible and in what it
is not; for in some cases, e.g. that of a house, the form clearly does
not exist in separation.
Again, are the
first principles formally or numerically the same?
6 If they are numerically one, all things will
be the same.
Since the science of the philosopher is
concerned with Being qua Being
universally,
7 and not with some part of
it, and since the term Being has several meanings and is not used only
in one sense, if it is merely equivocal and has no common significance
it cannot fall under one science (for there is no one class in things
of this kind); but if it has a common significance it must fall under
one science.
Now it would seem that it is used in the
sense which we have described, like "medical" and "healthy," for we
use each of these terms in several senses;