Aristotle, Metaphysics

[1015b] [1] only when it is impossible to act according to impulse, because of the compulsion: which shows that necessity is that because of which a thing cannot be otherwise; and the same is true of the concomitant conditions of living and of the good. For when in the one case good, and in the other life or existence, is impossible without certain conditions, these conditions are necessary, and the cause is a kind of necessity.

(e) Again, demonstration is a "necessary" thing, because a thing cannot be otherwise if the demonstration has been absolute. And this is the result of the first premisses, when it is impossible for the assumptions upon which the syllogism depends to be otherwise.

Thus of necessary things, some have an external cause of their necessity, and others have not, but it is through them that other things are of necessity what they are.Hence the "necessary" in the primary and proper sense is the simple , for it cannot be in more than one condition. Hence it cannot be in one state and in another; for if so it would ipso facto be in more than one condition. Therefore if there are certain things which are eternal and immutable, there is nothing in them which is compulsory or which violates their nature.

The term "one" is used (1.) in an accidental, (2.) in an absolute sense. (1.) In the accidental sense it is used as in the case of "Coriscus"¹ and "cultured" and "cultured Coriscus" (for "Coriscus" and "cultured" and "cultured Coriscus" mean the same);and "cultured" and "upright" [20] and "cultured upright Coriscus." For all these terms refer accidentally to one thing; "upright" and "cultured" because they are accidental to one substance, and "cultured" and "Coriscus" because the one is accidental to the other.And similarly in one sense "cultured Coriscus" is one with "Coriscus," because one part of the expression is accidental to the other, e.g. "cultured" to "Coriscus"; and "cultured Coriscus" is one with "upright Coriscus," becauseone part of each expression is one accident of one and the same thing. It is the same even if the accident is applied to a genus or a general term; e.g., "man" and "cultured man" are the same, either because "cultured" is an accident of "man," which is one substance, or because both are accidents of some individual, e.g. Coriscus.But they do not both belong to it in the same way; the one belongs presumably as genus in the substance, and the other as condition or affection of the substance. Thus all things which are said to be "one" in an accidental sense are said to be so in this way.

(2.) Of those things which are said to be in themselves one, (a) some are said to be so in virtue of their continuity; e.g., a faggot is made continuous by its string, and pieces of wood by glue;