[1001a]
[1]
But they swallow down the difficulty
which we raised first1 as though
they took it to be trifling.2But the hardest question of all to investigate and also the most
important with a view to the discovery of the truth, is whether after
all Being and Unity are substances of existing things, and each of
them is nothing else than Being and Unity respectively, or whether we
should inquire what exactly Being and Unity are, there being some
other nature underlying them.Some take the former, others the latter view
of the nature of Being and Unity. Plato and the Pythagoreans hold that
neither Being nor Unity is anything else than itself, and that this is
their nature, their essence being simply Being and Unity.But the physicists, e.g.
Empedocles, explain what Unity is by reducing it to something, as it
were, more intelligible—or it would seem that by Love
Empedocles means Unity; at any rate Love is the cause of Unity in all
things. Others identify fire and others air with this Unity and Being
of which things consist and from which they have been
generated.Those who
posit more numerous elements also hold the same view; for they too
must identify Unity and Being with all the principles which they
recognize.
[20]
And it
follows that unless one assumes Unity and Being to be substance in
some sense, no other universal term can be substance; for Unity and
Being are the most universal of all terms,and if there is no absolute Unity or absolute
Being, no other concept can well exist apart from the so-called
particulars. Further, if Unity is not substance, clearly number cannot
be a separate characteristic of things; for number is units, and the
unit is simply a particular kind of one.On the other
hand, if there is absolute Unity and Being, their substance must be
Unity and Being; for no other term is predicated universally of Unity
and Being, but only these terms themselves. Again, if there is to be
absolute Being and absolute Unity, it is very hard to see how there
can be anything else besides these; I mean, how things can be more
than one.For that which
is other than what is, is not; and so by Parmenides' argument3 it must follow that all things are one, i.e.
Being.
1 i.e., whether all things have the same principles.
2 For Aristotle's views about the principles of perishable and imperishable things see Aristot. Met. 7.7-10, Aristot. Met. 12.1-7.
3 By τὸ ὄν Parmenides meant "what is," i.e. the real universe, which he proved to be one thing because anything else must be "what is not," or non-existent. The Platonists meant by it "being" in the abstract. Aristotle ignores this distinction.
Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.
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