70 Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 1038, b. 15. διχῶς ὑποκεῖται, ἢ τόδε τι ὄν, ὥσπερ τὸ ζῷον τοῖς πάθεσιν, ἢ ὡς ἡ ὕλη τῇ ἐντελεχείᾳ. The first mode of ὑποκείμενον is what is in the Categories. For the second, which is the metaphysical analysis, see Aristot. Metaph. Z. p. 1029, a. 23: τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα τῆς οὐσίας κατηγορεῖται, αὕτη δὲ τῆς ὕλης. ὥστε τὸ ἔσχατον καθ’ αὑτὸ οὔτε τὶ οὔτε ποσὸν οὔτε ἄλλο οὐθέν ἐστι.
Porphyry and Dexippus tell us (Schol. ad Categ. p. 45, a. 6-30) that both Aristotle and the Stoics distinguished πρῶτον ὑποκείμενον and δεύτερον ὑποκείμενον. The πρῶτον ὑποκείμενον is ἡ ἄποιος ὕλη — τὸ δυνάμει σῶμα, which Aristotle insists upon in the Physica and Metaphysica, the δεύτερον ὑποκείμενον, ὃ κοινῶς ποιὸν ἢ ἰδίως ὑφίσταται, coincides with the πρώτη οὐσία of the Categories, already implicated with εἶδος and stopping short of metaphysical analysis.
The remarks of Boêthus and Simplikius upon this point deserve attention. Schol. pp. 50-54, Br.; p. 54, a. 2: οὐ περὶ τῆς ἀσχέτου ὕλης ἐστὶν ὁ παρὼν λόγος, ἀλλὰ τῆς ἤδη σχέσιν ἐχούσης πρὸς τὸ εἶδος. τὸ δὲ σύνθετον δηλόνοτι, ὅπερ ἐστὶ τὸ ἄτομον, ἐπιδέχεται τὸ τόδε. They point out that the terms Form and Matter are not mentioned in the Categories, nor do they serve to illustrate the Categories, which do not carry analysis so far back, but take their initial start from τόδε τι, the σύνθετον of Form and Matter, — οὐσία κυριώτατα καὶ πρώτως καὶ μάλιστα λεγομένη.
Simplikius says (p. 50, a. 17):— δυνατὸν δὲ τοῦ μὴ μνημονεῦσαι τοῦ εἴδους καὶ τῆς ὕλης αἴτιον λέγειν, καὶ τὸ τὴν τῶν Κατηγοριῶν πραγματείαν κατὰ τὴν πρόχειρον καὶ κοινὴν τοῦ λόγου χρῆσιν ποιεῖσθαι· τὸ δὲ τῆς ὕλης καὶ τοῦ εἴδους ὄνομα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ τούτων σημαινόμενα οὐκ ἦν τοῖς πολλοῖς συνήθη, &c. Compare p. 47, a. 27. This what Dexippus says also, that the Categories bear only upon τὴν πρώτην χρείαν τοῦ λόγου καθ’ ἣν τὰ πράγματα δηλοῦν ἀλλήλοις ἐφιέμεθα (p. 13, ed. Spengel; also p. 49).
Waitz, ad Categor. p. 284. “In Categoriis, non de ipsâ rerum naturâ et veritate exponit, sed res tales capit, quales apparent in communi vitâ homini philosophiâ non imbuto.”
We may add, that Aristotle applies the metaphysical analysis — Form and Matter — not only to the Category οὐσία but also to that of ποιὸν and ποσόν. (De Cœlo, iv. 312, a. 14.)
71 Aristot. Metaph. Δ. 1017, a. 23. ὁσαχῶς γὰρ λέγεται, τοσαυταχῶς τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει.
Confining ourselves (as I have already observed that Aristotle does in the Categories) to those perceptible or physical subjects which every one admits,72 and keeping clear of metaphysical entities, we shall see that respecting any one of these subjects the nine questions here put may all be put and answered; that the two last are most likely to be put in regard to some living being; and that the last can seldom be put in regard to any other subject except a person (including man, woman, or child). Every individual person falls necessarily under each of the ten Categories; belongs to the Genus animal, Species man; he is of a certain height and bulk; has certain qualities; stands in certain relations to other persons or things; is doing something and suffering something; is in a certain place; must be described with reference to a certain moment of time; is in a certain attitude or posture; is clothed or equipped in a certain manner. Information of some kind may always be given respecting him under each of these heads; he is always by necessity quantus, but not always of any particular quantity. Until such information is given, the concrete individual is not known under conditions thoroughly determined.73 Moreover each head is separate and independent, not resolvable into any of the rest, with a reservation, presently to be noticed, of Relation in its most comprehensive meaning. When I say of a man, that he is at home, lying down, clothed with a tunic, &c., I do not predicate of him any quality, action, or passion. The information which I give belongs to three other heads distinct from these last, and distinct also from each other. If you suppress the two last of the ten Categories and leave only the preceding eight, under which of these eight are you to rank the predicates, Sokrates is lying down, Sokrates is clothed with a tunic, &c.? The necessity for admitting the ninth and tenth Categories (Jacere and Habere) as separate general heads in the list, is as great as the necessity for admitting most of the Categories which precede. The ninth and tenth are of narrower comprehension,74 and include a smaller number of distinguishable varieties, than the preceding; but they are not the less separate heads of information. So, among the chemical elements enumerated by modern science, some are very rarely found; yet they are not for that reason the less entitled to a place in the list.
72 Ibid. Z. p. 1028, b. 8, seq.: p. 1042, a. 25. αἱ αἰσθηταὶ οὐσίαι — αἱ ὁμολογούμεναι οὐσίαι.
73 Prantl observes, Geschichte der Logik, p. 208:— “Fragen wir, wie Aristoteles überhaupt dazu gekommen sei, von Kategorien zu sprechen, und welche Geltung dieselben bei ihm haben, so ist unsere Antwort hierauf folgende: Aristoteles geht, im Gegensatze gegen Platon, davon aus, dass die Allgemeinheit in der Concretion des Seienden sich verwirkliche und in dieser Realität von dem menschlichen Denken und Sprechen ergriffen werde; der Verwirklichungsprocess des concret Seienden ist der Uebergang vom Unbestimmten, jeder Bestimmung aber fähigen, zum allseitig Bestimmten, welchem demnach die Bestimmtheit überhaupt als eine selbst concret gewordene einwohnt und ebenso in des Menschen Rede von ihm ausgesagt wird. Das grundwesentliche Ergebniss der Verwirklichung ist sonach: die zeitlich-räumlich concret auftretende und hiemit individuell gewordene Substanzialität, in einer dem Zustande der Concretion entsprechenden Erscheinungsweise; diese letztere umfasst das ganze habituelle Dasein und Wirken der concreten Substanz, welche in der Welt der räumlichen Ausdehnung numerären Vielheit erscheint. Die ontologische Basis demnach der Kategorien ist der in die Concretion führende Verwirklichungsprocess der Bestimmtheit überhaupt.”
74 Plotinus, among his various grounds of exception to the ten Aristotelian Categories, objects to the ninth and tenth on the ground of their narrow comprehension (Ennead. vi. 1, 23, 24).
Boêthus expressly vindicated the title of ἔχειν to be recognized as a separate Category, against the Stoic objectors. — Schol. ad Categ. p. 81, a. 5.
If we seek not to appreciate the value of the Ten Categories as a philosophical classification, but to understand what was in the mind of Aristotle when he framed it, we shall attend, not so much to the greater features, which it presents in common with every other scheme of classification, as to the minor features which constitute its peculiarity. In this point of view the two last Categories are more significant than the first four, and the tenth is the most significant of all; for every one is astonished when he finds Habere enrolled as a tenth Summum Genus, co-ordinate with Quantum and Quale. Now what is remarkable about the ninth and tenth Categories is, that individual persons or animals are the only Subjects respecting whom they are ever predicated, and are at the same time Subjects respecting whom they are constantly (or at least frequently) predicated. An individual person is habitually clothed in some particular way in all or part of his body; he (and perhaps his horse also) are the only Subjects that are ever so clothed. Moreover animals are the only Subjects, and among them man is the principal Subject, whose changes of posture are frequent, various, determined by internal impulses, and at the same time interesting to others to know. Hence we may infer that when Aristotle lays down the Ten Categories, as Summa Genera for all predications which can be made about any given Subject, the Subject which he has wholly, or at least principally, in his mind is an individual Man. We understand, then, how it is that he declares Habere and Jacere to be so plain as to need no farther explanation. What is a man’s posture? What is his clothing or equipment? are questions understood by every one.75 But when Aristotle treats of Habere elsewhere, he is far from recognizing it as narrow and plain per se. Even in the Post-Predicamenta (an appendix tacked on to the Categoriæ, either by himself afterwards, or by some follower) he declares Habere to be a predicate of vague and equivocal signification; including portions of Quale, Quantum, and Relata. And he specifies the personal equipment of an individual as only one among these many varieties of signification. He takes the same view in the fourth book (Δ.) of the Metaphysica, which book is a sort of lexicon of philosophical terms.76 This enlargement of the meaning of the word Habere seems to indicate an alteration of Aristotle’s point of view, dropping that special reference to an individual man as Subject, which was present to him when he drew up the list of Ten Categories. The like alteration carried him still farther, so as to omit the ninth and tenth almost entirely, when he discusses the more extensive topics of philosophy. Some of his followers, on the contrary, instead of omitting Habere out of the list of Categories, tried to procure recognition for it in the larger sense which it bears in the Metaphysica. Archytas ranked it fifth in the series, immediately after Relata.77
75 In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Mr. James Harris’s Philosophical Arrangements, there is a learned and valuable illustration of these two last Aristotelian Categories. I think, however, that he gives to the Predicament Κεῖσθαι (Jacere) a larger and more comprehensive meaning than it bears in the treatise Categoriæ; and that neither he, nor the commentators whom he cites (p. 317), take sufficient notice of the marked distinction drawn in that treatise between κεῖσθαι and θέσις (Cat. p. 6, b. 12). Mr. Harris ranks the arrangement of words in an orderly discourse, and of propositions in a valid syllogism, as cases coming under the Predicament Κεῖσθαι; which is travelling far beyond the meaning of that word in the Aristotelian Categories. At the same time he brings out strongly the fact, that living beings, and especially men, are the true and special subjects of predicates belonging to Κεῖσθαι and Ἔχειν. The more we attend to this, the nearer approach shall we make to the state of Aristotle’s mind when he drew up the list of Categories; as indeed Harris himself seems to recognize (chap. ii. p. 29).
76 Aristot. Categor. p. 15, b. 17; Metaphys. Δ. p. 1023, a. 8.
77 See the Scholia of Simplikius, p. 80, b. 7, seq.; p. 92, b. 41, Brand.; where the different views of Archytas, Plotinus, and Boêthus, are given; also p. 59, b. 43: προηγεῖται γὰρ ἡ συμφυὴς τῶν πρός τι σχέσις τῶν ἐπικτήτων σχέσεων, ὡς καὶ τῲ Ἀρχύτᾳ δοκεῖ. In the language of Archytas, αἱ ἐπίκτητοι σχέσεις were the equivalent of the Aristotelian ἔχειν.
The narrow manner in which Aristotle conceives the Predicament Habere in the treatise Categoriæ, and the enlarged sense given to that term both in the Post-Predicaments and in the Metaphysica, lead to a suspicion that the Categoriæ is comparatively early, in point of date, among his compositions. It seems more likely that he should begin with the narrower view, and pass from thence to the larger, rather than vice versâ. Probably the predicates specially applicable to Man would be among his early conceptions, but would by later thought be tacitly dropped,78 so as to retain those only which had a wider philosophical application.
78 Respecting the paragraph (at the close of the Categoriæ) about τὸ ἔχειν, see the Scholion in Waitz’s ed. of the Organon, p. 38.
The fact that Archytas in his treatise presented the Aristotelian Category ἔχειν under the more general phrase of αἱ ἐπίκτητοι σχέσεις (see the preceding note), is among the reasons for believing that treatise to be later than Aristotle.
I have already remarked that Aristotle, while enrolling all the Ten Predicaments as independent heads, each the Generalissimum of a separate descending line of predicates, admitted at the same time that various predicates did not of necessity belong to one of these lines exclusively, but might take rank in more than one line. There are some which he enumerates under all the different heads of Quality, Relation, Action, Passion. The classification is evidently recognized as one to which we may apply a remark which he makes especially in regard to Quality and Relation, under both of which heads (he says) the same predicates may sometimes be counted.79 And the observation is much more extensively true than he was aware; for he both conceives and defines the Category of Relation or Relativity (Ad Aliquid) in a way much narrower than really belongs to it. If he had assigned to this Category its full and true comprehension, he would have found it implicated with all the other nine. None of them can be isolated from it in predication.
79 Aristot. Categ. p. 11, a. 37.
Simplikius says that what Aristotle admits about ποιότης, is true about all the other Categories also, viz.: that it is not a strict and proper γένος. Each of the ten Categories is (what Aristotle says about τὸ ὃν) μέσον τῶν τε συνωνόμων καὶ ὁμωνύμων. — οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐκεῖνα κυρίως ἐστὶ γένη, οὐδὲ ὡς γένη τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτὰ κατηγορεῖται, τάξεως οὔσης πανταχοῦ πρώτων καὶ δευτέρων. (Scholia ad Categor. p. 69, b. 30, Br.) This is a remarkable observation, which has not been sufficiently adverted to, I think, by Brentano in his treatise on Aristotle’s Ontology.
That Agere and Pati (with the illustrations which he himself gives thereof — urit, uritur) may be ranked as varieties under the generic Category of Relation or Relativity, can hardly be overlooked. The like is seen to be true about Ubi and Quando, when we advert to any one of the predicates belonging to either; such as, in the market-place, yesterday.80 Moreover, not merely the last six of the ten Categories, but also the second and fourth (Quantum and Quale) are implicated with and subordinated to Relation. If we look at Quantum, we shall find that the example which Aristotle gives of it is τριπῆχυς, tricubital, or three cubits long; a term quite as clearly relative as the term διπλάσιος or double, which he afterwards produces as instance of the Category Ad Aliquid.81 When we are asked the questions, How much is the height? How large is the field? we cannot give the information required except by a relative predicate — it is three feet — it is four acres; we thereby carry back the mind of the questioner to some unit of length or superficies already known to him, and we convey our meaning by comparison with such unit. Again, if we turn from Quantum to Quale, we find the like Relativity implied in all the predicates whereby answer is made to the question Ποιὸς τίς ἐστι; Qualis est? What manner of man is he? He is such as A, B, C — persons whom we have previously seen, or heard, or read of.82
80 The remarks of Plotinus upon these four last-mentioned Categories are prolix and vague, but many of them go to shew how much τὸ πρός τι is involved in all of the four (Ennead. vi. 1, 14-18).
81 Trendelenburg (Kategorienlehre, p. 184) admits a certain degree of interference and confusion between the Categories of Quantum and Ad Aliquid; but in very scanty measure, and much beneath the reality.
82 The following passages from Mr. James Mill (Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. ii. ch. xiv. sect. ii. pp. 48, 49, 56, 1st ed.) state very clearly the Relativity of the predicates of Quantity and Quality:—
“It seems necessary that I should say something of the word Quantus, from which the word Quantity is derived. Quantus is the correlate of Tantus. Tantus, Quantus, are relative terms, applicable to all the objects to which we apply the terms Great, Little.” — “Of two lines, we call the one tantus, the other quantus. The occasions on which we do so, are when the one is as long as the other.” — “When we say that one thing is tantus, quantus another, or one so great, as the other is great; the first is referred to the last, the tantus to the quantus. The first is distinguished and named by the last. The Quantus is the standard.” — “On what account, then, is it that we give to any thing the name Quantus? As a standard by which to name another thing, Tantus. The thing called Quantus is the previously known thing, the ascertained amount, by which we can mark and define the other amount.”
“Talis, Qualis, are applied to objects in the same way, on one account, as Tantus, Quantus, on another; and the explanation we gave of Tantus, Quantus, may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the pair of relatives which we have now named. Tantus, Quantus, are names applied to objects on account of dimension. Talis, Qualis, are names applied to objects on account of all other sensations. We apply Tantus, Quantus, to a pair of objects when they are equal; we apply Talis, Qualis, to a pair of objects when they are alike. One of the objects is then the standard. The object Qualis is that to which the reference is made.”
Compare the same work, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 225:— “The word Such is a relative term, and always connotes so much of the meaning of some other term. When we call a thing such, it is always understood that it is such as some other thing. Corresponding with our words such as, the Latins had Talis, Qualis.”
We thus see that all the predicates, not only under the Category which Aristotle terms Ad Aliquid, but also under all the last nine Categories, are relative. Indeed the work of predication is always relative. The express purpose, as well as the practical usefulness, of a significant predicate is, to carry the mind of the hearer either to a comparison or to a general notion which is the result of past comparisons. But though each predicate connotes Relation, each connotes a certain fundamentum besides, which gives to the Relation its peculiar character. Relations of Quantity are not the same as relations of Quality; the predicates of the former connote a fundamentum different from the predicates of the latter, though in both the meaning conveyed is relative. In fact, every predicate or concrete general name is relative, or connotes a Relation to something else, actual or potential, beyond the thing named. The only name not relative is the Proper name, which connotes no attributes, and cannot properly be used as a predicate (so Aristotle remarks), but only as a Subject.83 Sokrates, Kallias, Bukephalus &c., denotes the Hoc Aliquid or Unum Numero, which, when pronounced alone, indicates some concrete aggregate (as yet unknown) which may manifest itself to my senses, but does not, so far as the name is concerned, involve necessary reference to anything besides; though even these names, when one and the same name continues to be applied to the same object, may be held to connote a real or supposed continuity of past or future existence, and become thus to a certain extent relative.
83 You may make Sokrates a predicate, in the proposition, τὸ λευκὸν ἐκεῖνο Σωκράτης ἐστίν, but Aristotle dismisses this as an irregular or perverse manner of speaking (see Analytic. Priora, i. p. 43, a. 35; Analyt. Poster. i. p. 83, a. 2-16).
Alexander calls these propositions αἱ παρὰ φύσιν προτάσεις (see Schol. ad Metaphys. Δ. p. 1017, a. 23).
Mr. James Harris observes (Philosophical Arrangements, ch. x. p. 214; also 317, 348):— “Hence too we may see why Relation stands next to Quantity; for in strictness the Predicaments which follow are but different modes of Relation, marked by some peculiar character over their own, over and above the relative character, which is common to them all.” To which I would add, that the first two Categories, Substance and Quantity, are no less relative or correlative than the eight later Categories; as indeed Harris himself thinks; see the same work, pp. 90, 473: “Matter and Attribute are essentially distinct, yet, like convex and concave, they are by nature inseparable. We have already spoken as to the inseparability of attributes; we now speak as to that of matter. Ἡμεῖς δὲ φαμὲν μὲν εἶναί τινα ὕλην τῶν σωμάτων τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ ταύτην οὐ χωριστὴν ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ μετ’ ἐναντιώσεως — ὕλην τὴν ἀχώριστον μὲν, ὑποκειμένην δὲ τοῖς ἐναντίοις (Aristot. De Gen. et Corr. p. 329, a. 24). By contraries, Aristotle means here the several attributes of matter, hot, cold, &c.; from some one or other of which matter is always inseparable.”
We must observe that what the proper name denotes is any certain concrete One and individual,84 with his attributes essential and non-essential, whatever they may be, though as yet undeclared, and with his capacity of receiving other attributes different and even opposite. This is what Aristotle indicates as the most special characteristic of Substance or Essence, that while it is Unum et Idem Numero, it is capable of receiving contraries. This potentiality of contraries, described as characterizing the Unum et Idem Numero,85 is relative to something about to come; the First Essence is doubtless logically First, but it is just as much relative to the Second, as the Second to the First. We know it only by two negations and one affirmation, all of which are relative to predications in futuro. It is neither in a Subject, nor predicable of a Subject. It is itself the ultimate Subject of all predications and all inherencies. Plainly, therefore, we know it only relatively to these predications and inherencies. Aristotle says truly, that if you take away the First Essences, everything else, Second Essences as well as Accidents, disappears along with them. But he might have added with equal truth, that if you take away all Second Essences and all Accidents, the First Essences will disappear equally. The correlation and interdependence is reciprocal.86 It may be suitable, with a view to clear and retainable philosophical explanation, to state the Subject first and the predicates afterwards; so that the Subject may thus be considered as logically prius. But in truth the Subject is only a substratum for predicates,87 as much as the predicates are superstrata upon the Subject. The term substratum designates not an absolute or a per se, but a Correlatum to certain superstrata, determined or undetermined: now the Correlatum is one of the pair implicated directly or indirectly in all Relation; and it is in fact specified by Aristotle as one variety of the Category Ad Aliquid.88 We see therefore that the idea of Relativity attaches to the first of the ten Categories, as well as to the nine others. The inference from these observations is, that Relation or Relativity, understood in the large sense which really belongs to it, ought to be considered rather as an Universal, comprehending and pervading all the Categories, than as a separate Category in itself, co-ordinate with the other nine. It is the condition and characteristic of the work of predication generally; the last analysis of which is into Subject and Predicate, in reciprocal implication with each other. I remark that this was the view taken of it by some well-known Peripatetic commentators of antiquity;89 by Andronikus, for example, and by Ammonius after him. Plato, though he makes no attempt to draw up a list of Categories, has an incidental passage respecting Relativity;90 conceiving it in a very extended sense, apparently as belonging more or less to all predicates. Aristotle, though in the Categoriæ he gives a narrower explanation of it, founded upon grammatical rather than real considerations, yet intimates in other places that predicates ranked under the heads of Quale, Actio, Passio, Jacere, &c., may also be looked at as belonging to the head of Ad Aliquid.91 This latter, moreover, he himself declares elsewhere to be Ens in the lowest degree, farther removed from the Prima Essentia than any of the other Categories; to be more in the nature of an appendage to some of them, especially to Quantum and Quale;92 and to presuppose, not only the Prima Essentia (which all the nine later Categories presuppose), but also one or more of the others, indicating the particular mode of comparison or Relativity in each case affirmed. Thus, under one aspect, Relation or Relativity may be said to stand prius naturâ, and to come first in order before all the Categories, inasmuch as it is implicated with the whole business of predication (which those Categories are intended to resolve into its elements), and belongs not less to the mode of conceiving what we call the Subject, than to the mode of conceiving what we call its Predicates, each and all. Under another aspect, Relativity may be said to stand last in order among the Categories — even to come after the adverbial Categories Ubi et Quando; because its locus standi is dim and doubtful, and because every one of the subordinate predicates belonging to it may be seen to belong to one or other of the remaining Categories also. Aristotle remarks that the Category Ad Aliquid has no peculiar and definite mode of generation corresponding to it, in the manner that Increase and Diminution belong to Quantum, Change to Quale, Generation, simple and absolute, to Essence or Substance.93 New relations may become predicable of a thing, without any change in the thing itself, but simply by changes in other things.94
84 Simplikius ap. Schol. p. 52, a. 42: πρὸς ὅ φασιν οἱ σπουδαιότεροι τῶν ἐξηγητῶν, ὅτι ἡ αἰσθητὴ οὐσία συμφόρησίς τίς ἐστι ποιοτήτων καὶ ὕλης, καὶ ὁμοῦ μὲν πάντα συμπαγέντα μίαν ποιεῖ τὴν αἰσθητὴν οὐσίαν, χωρὶς δὲ ἕκαστον λαμβανόμενον τὸ μὲν ποιὸν τὸ δὲ ποσόν ἐστι λαμβανόμενον, ἤ τι ἄλλο.
85 Aristot. Categ. p. 4, a. 10: Μάλιστα δὲ ἴδιον τοῦτο τῆς οὐσίας δοκεῖ εἶναι, τὸ ταὐτὸν καὶ ἓν ἀριθμῷ ὂν τῶν ἐναντίων εἶναι δεκτικόν. See Waitz, note, p. 290: δεκτικὸν dicitur τὸ ἐν ᾧ πέφυκεν ὑπάρχειν τι.
Dexippus, and after him Simplikius, observe justly, that the characteristic mark of πρώτη οὐσία is this very circumstance of being unum numero, which belongs in common to all πρῶται οὐσίαι, and is indicated by the Proper name: λύσις δὲ τούτου, ὅτι αὐτὸ τὸ μίαν εἶναι ἀριθμῷ, κοινός ἐστι λόγος. (Simpl. in Categor., fol. 22 Δ.; Dexippus, book ii. sect. 18, p. 57, ed. Spengel.)
86 Aristot. Categ. p. 2, b. 5. μὴ οὐσῶν οὖν τῶν πρώτων οὐσιῶν ἀδύνατον τῶν ἄλλων τι εἶναι.
Mr. John Stuart Mill observes: “As to the self-existence of Substance, it is very true that a substance may be conceived to exist without any other substance; but so also may an attribute without any other attributes. And we can no more imagine a substance without attributes, than we can imagine attributes without a substance.” (System of Logic, bk. i. ch. iii. p. 61, 6th ed.)
87 Aristot. Physic. ii. p. 194, b. 8. ἔτι τῶν πρός τι ἡ ὕλη· ἄλλῳ γὰρ εἴδει ἄλλη ὕλη.
Plotinus puts this correctly, in his criticisms on the Stoic Categories; criticisms which on this point equally apply to the Aristotelian: πρός τι γὰρ τὸ ὑποκείμενον, οὐ πρὸς τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸ ποιοῦν εἰς αὐτό, κείμενον. Καὶ τὸ ὑποκείμενον ὑποκεῖται πρὸς τὸ οὐχ ὑποκείμενον· εἰ τοῦτο, πρὸς τὰ τὸ ἔξω, &c. Also Dexippus in the Scholia ad Categor. p. 45, a. 26: τὸ γὰρ ὑποκείμενον κατὰ πρός τι λέγεσθαι ἐδόκει, τινὶ γὰρ ὑποκείμενον.
88 Aristot. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1020, b. 31, p. 1021, a. 27, seq.
89 Schol. p. 60, a. 38, Br.; p. 47, b. 26. Xenokrates and Andronikus included all things under the two heads τὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ and τὸ πρός τι. Ἀνδρόνικος μὲν γὰρ ὁ Ῥόδιος τελευταίαν ἀπονέμει τοῖς προς τι τάξιν, λέγων αἰτίαν τοιαύτην. τὰ πρός τι οἰκείαν ὕλη οὐκ ἔχει· παραφυάδι γὰρ ἔοικεν οἰκείαν φύσιν μὴ ἐχούσῃ ἀλλὰ περιπλεκομένῃ τοῖς ἔχουσιν οἰκείαν ῥίζαν· αἱ δὲ ἔννεα κατηγορίαι οἰκείαν ὕλην ἔχουσιν· εἰκότως οὖν τελευταίαν ὤφειλον ἔχειν τάξιν. Again, Schol. p. 60, a. 24 (Ammonius): καλῶς δέ τινες ἀπεικάζουσι τὰ πρός τι παραφυάσιν, &c. Also p. 59, b. 41; p. 49, a. 47; p. 61, b. 29: ἴσως δὲ καὶ ὅτι τὰ πρός τι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις γένεσιν ὑφέστηκε, διὰ τοῦτο σὺν αὐτοῖς θεωρεῖται, κἂν μὴ προηγουμένης ἔτυχε μνήμης (and the Scholia ad p. 6, a. 36, prefixed to Waitz’s edition, p. 33). Also p. 62, a. 37: διὰ ταῦτα δὲ ὡς παραφυομένην ταῖς ἄλλαις κατηγορίαις τὴν τοῦ πρός τι ἐπεισοδιώδη νομίζουσι, καίτοι προηγουμένην οὖσαν καὶ κατὰ διαφορὰν οἰκείαν θεωρουμένην. Boêthus had written an entire book upon τὰ πρός τι, Schol. p. 61, b. 9.
90 Plato, Republic, iv. 437 C. to 439 B. (compare also Sophistes, p. 255 C., and Politicus, p. 285). Καὶ τὰ πλείω δὴ πρὸς τὰ ἐλάττω καὶ τὰ διπλάσια πρὸς τὰ ἡμίσεα καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα, καὶ αὖ βαρύτερα πρὸς κουφότερα καὶ θάττω πρὸς βραδύτερα, καὶ ἔτι γε τὰ θερμὰ πρὸς τὰ ψυχρὰ καὶ πάντα τὰ τούτοις ὅμοια, ἆρ’ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει; (438 C.)
91 See Metaphysic. Δ. p. 1020, b. 26, p. 1021, b. 10. Trendelenburg observes (Gesch. der Kategorienlehre, pp. 118-122, seq.) how much more the description given of πρός τι in the Categoriæ is determined by verbal or grammatical considerations, than in the Metaphysica and other treatises of Aristotle.
92 See Ethic. Nikomach. i. p. 1096, a. 20: τὸ δὲ καθ’ αὑτὸ καὶ ἡ οὐσία πρότερον τῇ φύσει τοῦ πρός τι· παραφυάδι γὰρ τοῦτ’ ἔοικε καὶ συμβεβηκότι τοῦ ὄντος, ὥστε οὐκ ἂν εἴη κοινή τις ἐπὶ τούτων ἰδέα. (The expression παραφυάδι was copied by Andronikus; see a note on the preceding page.) Metaphys. N. p. 1088, a. 22-26: τὸ δὲ πρός τι πάντων ἥκιστα φύσις τις ἢ οὐσία τῶν κατηγοριῶν ἐστί, καὶ ὑστέρα τοῦ ποιοῦ καὶ ποσοῦ· καὶ πάθος τι τοῦ ποσοῦ τὸ πρός τι, ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὕλη, εἴ τι ἕτερον καὶ τῷ ὅλως κοινῷ πρός τι καὶ τοῖς μέρεσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ εἴδεσιν. Compare Bonitz in his note on p. 1070, a. 33.
The general doctrine laid down by Aristotle, Metaphys. N. p. 1087, b. 34, seq., about the universality of μέτρον as pervading all the Categories, is analogous to the passage above referred to in the Politicus of Plato, and implies the Relativity involved more or less in all predicates.
93 Aristot. Metaph. N. p. 1088, a. 29: σημεῖον δὲ ὅτι ἥκιστα οὐσία τις καὶ ὄν τι τὸ πρός τι τὸ μόνον μὴ εἶναι γένεσιν αὐτοῦ μηδὲ φθορὰν μηδὲ κίνησιν, ὥσπερ κατὰ τὸ ποσὸν αὔξησις καὶ φθίσις, κατὰ τὸ ποιὸν ἀλλοίωσις, κατὰ τόπον φορά, κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ἡ ἁπλῆ γένεσις καὶ φθορά. Compare K. p. 1068, a. 9: ἀνάγκη τρεῖς εἶναι κινήσεις, ποιοῦ, ποσοῦ, τόπου. κατ’ οὐσίαν δ’ οὔ, διὰ τὸ μηθὲν εἶναι οὐσίᾳ ἐναντίον, οὐδὲ τοῦ πρός τι. Also Physica, v. p. 225, b. 11: ἐνδέχεται γὰρ θατέρου μεταβάλλοντος ἀληθεύεσθαι θάτερον μηδὲν μετάβαλλον. See about this passage Bonitz and Schwegler’s notes on Metaphys. p. 1068.