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[1027a]
[1]
It is by accident that a builder restores to
health, because it is not a builder but a doctor who naturally does
this; but the builder happened accidentally to be a doctor. A
confectioner, aiming at producing enjoyment, may produce something
health-giving; but not in virtue of his confectioner's art. Hence, we
say, it was accidental; and he produces it in a sense, but not in an
unqualified sense.For
there are potencies which produce other things, but there is no art or
determinate potency of accidents, since the cause of things which
exist or come to be by accident is also accidental.Hence, since not everything is or comes
to be of necessity and always, but most things happen usually, the
accidental must exist. E.g., the white man is neither always nor
usually cultured; but since this sometimes happens, it must be
regarded as accidental. Otherwise, everything must be regarded as of
necessity.Therefore
the cause of the accidental is the matter, which admits of variation
from the usual.We must take this as our
starting-point: Is everything either "always" or "usually"? This is
surely impossible. Then besides these alternatives there is something
else: the fortuitous and accidental. But again, are things
usually so, but nothing always , or
are there things which are eternal? These questions must be inquired
into later1;
[20]
but it is clear that there is no
science of the accidental—because all scientific knowledge
is of that which is always or usually so.
How else indeed can one learn it or teach it to another? For a fact
must be defined by being so always or usually; e.g., honey-water is
usually beneficial in case of fever.But science will not be able to state the
exception to the rule: when it is not beneficial—e.g. at the
new moon; because that which happens at the new moon also happens
either always or usually; but the accidental is contrary to this. We
have now explained the nature and cause of the accidental, and that
there is no science of it.It is obvious that there are
principles and causes which are generable and destructible apart from
the actual processes of generation and destruction2; for if this is not true, everything
will be of necessity: that is, if there must necessarily be some
cause, other than accidental, of that which is generated and
destroyed. Will A be, or not? Yes, if B happens; otherwise not. And B
will happen if C does.It
is clear that in this way, as time is continually subtracted from a
limited period, we shall come to the present.
1 Cf. Aristot. Met. 12.6-8.
2 On the analogy of accidental events; see 2. 5.
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