< Page:Metaphysics by Aristotle Ross 1908 (deannotated).djvu
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Γ. BOOK IV

1007b

both are accidents of the same subject. I mean, for instance, the white is musical and the latter is white, only because both are accidental to man. But (2) Socrates is musical, not in this sense, that both terms are accidental to something else. Since then some predicates are accidental in this and some in that sense, (a) those which are accidental in the latter sense, in which white is accidental to Socrates, cannot form an infinite series in the upward direction,[1]—e. g. Socrates the white has not yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum. Nor again (b) will 'white' have another term accidental to it, e. g. 'musical'. For this is no more accidental to that than that is to this ; and at the same time we have drawn the distinction, that while some predicates are accidental in this sense, others, are so in the sense in which 'musical' is accidental to Socrates; and the accident is an accident of an accident not in cases of the latter kind, but only in cases of the other kind, so that not all terms will be accidental.[2] There must, then, be something which denotes substance. And it has been shown that, if this is so, contradictory statements cannot be predicated at the same time.

Again, if all contradictory statements are true of the same subject at the same time, evidently all things will be one. For the same thing will be a trireme, a wall, and a man, if it is equally possible to affirm and to deny anything of anything,—and this premise must be accepted by those who share the views of Protagoras. For if any one thinks that the man is not a trireme, evidently he is not a trireme; so that he also is a trireme, if, as they say, contradictory statements are both true. And we thus get the doctrine of Anaxagoras,[3] that all things are mixed together; so that nothing really exists. They seem, then, to be speaking of the indeterminate, and, while fancying themselves to be speaking of being, they are speaking about non-being; for that which exists potentially and not actually is the indeterminate. But they must

  1. ↑ i. e. in the direction of predicates, which are naturally wider or higher than the subject.
  2. ↑ Sense (1) reduces to sense (2), and in this an infinite number of accidents combined together is impossible; there must be substance somewhere.
  3. ↑ Fr. 1 Diels, Vorsokratiker.
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