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[1027b]
[1]
Accordingly So-and-so will die by disease or violence if he goes
out; and this if he gets thirsty; and this if something else happens;
and thus we shall come to what is the case now, or to something which
has already happened. E.g. "if he is thirsty"; this will happen if he
is eating pungent food, and this is either the case or not.Thus of necessity he will
either die or not die. And similarly if one jumps over to the past,
the principle is the same; for this—I mean that which has
just happened—is already present in something. Everything,
then, which is to be, will be of necessity; e.g., he who is alive must
die—for some stage of the process has been reached already;
e.g., the contraries are present in the same body—but
whether by disease or violence is not yet determined; it depends upon
whether so-and-so happens.Clearly, then, the series goes back to some starting-point, which
does not go back to something else. This, therefore, will be the
starting-point of the fortuitous, and nothing else is the cause of its
generation. But to what sort of starting-point and cause this process
of tracing back leads, whether to a material or final or moving cause,
is a question for careful consideration.So much, then, for
the accidental sense of "being"; we have defined it sufficiently. As
for "being" qua truth, and "not-being" qua falsity, since they depend upon
combination and separation,
[20]
and taken together are concerned with the arrangement of the parts
of a contradiction (since the true has affirmation when the subject
and predicate are combined, and negation where they are divided; but
the false has the contrary arrangement.How it happens that we combine or separate in
thought is another question. By "combining or separating in thought" I
mean thinking them not as a succession but as a unity1); for "falsity" and "truth" are not in
things —the good, for example, being true, and
the bad false—but in thought ; and with regard
to simple concepts and essences there is no truth or falsity even in
thought;—what points we must study in connection with being and
not-being in this sense, we must consider later. But since the
combination and separation exists in thought and not in things, and
this sense of "being" is different from the proper senses (since
thought attaches or detaches essence or quality or quantity or some
other category), we may dismiss the accidental and real senses2 of "being."For the cause of the one is indeterminate and
of the other an affection of thought;
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