ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

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METAPHYSICS 317
and these sometimes of opposite kinds. 1 Or again, if
the Idea is to be Substance, it cannot at the same time
be a general concept
2
for it is
individual things, but an individual itself
not the unity of many
among other
individuals. 3 Conversely, the things of which it is
predicated could not be true subjects. 4 Of Ideas of
this kind any defiuition would be as impossible as it is
of other individuals, 5 and since the Idea, like the
individual, is numerically one, it follows that one or
other of the contradictory predicates by which we subdivide
the genus must always be predicable of it, in
which case it clearly cannot be itself the genus also.
Aristotle considers the assertion that the Ideas contain
the essence of things to be inconsistent with the
view that they are at the same time incorporeal. He
represents Plato as speaking sometimes of a matter of
'
the Ideas '
(that being inconsistent with the notion that
they are not in space 7 ), and as holding at other times
that in the case of all natural objects matter and the
process of becoming belongs to the essence and conception
of them, in which case the conception of them
cannot exist by itself separately. 8
Similarly, he argues
that the ethical conceptions cannot be separated from
1
Metaph. vii. 13, 103!), a, 3, p. 215, svpra, from Categ. c. 2.
c. 14; cf. c. 8, 1033, b, 19, i. 9, 5
Metaph. vii. 15, 1040, a, 8-
991, a, 29, xiii. 9, 1085 a, 23. 27.
•'
Metaph. xiii. 9, 108G, a, 32, ' Top. vi. 6, 143, b, 23. Length
vii. 16, 1040, a, 26 sqq. cf. iii. 6, in itself must be either airfares
1003, a, 5. or irhdros Ix ", and then thagenus
3 Metapli. i. P, 992, b, 9, xiii. must be at once a species also.
$,nt supra.
' Phys. iv. 1, 209, b, 33; cf
* Metaph. vii. 6, 103l,b,15 ;cf. Zell. ibid. 556 sq., 628 sq.
Eonitz and Schweglbb on th*s " Pfffs. ii. 2, 193 b, 35 i«qq.
passage, and the citation at
318 ARISTOTLE
their objects. There can be no
'
Idea of the Good
standing by itself, for the conception of the Good appears
under all possible categories, and determines itself differently
according to the different circumstances ;
there are different sciences that deal with the
aad as
Good, so
there are different kinds of good, among which there is,
in fact, an ascending scale— a fact which of itself excludes
the possibility of a commonldea existing by itself. 1
A further objection is that the theory of Ideas logically
carried out would be a process ad infinitum : for if an
Idea is always to be posited in every case where more
things than one meet in a common definition, the
common essence of the Idea and its phenomenon must
always come in as a third term different from either of
them. 2
Even if the Ideal Theory were better founded and
1 Eth. N. i. 4 (Eud. i. 8) ; of. pre- in a relation of Before and After,
ceding notes. As to the principle and can consequently be included
that what is Trp6repov and vtrrepon in no common generic concept,
cannot be reduced to a common and therefore in no idea, but
generic concept, see Polit. iii. 1, (1096, b, 25 sqq.) only in a rela-
1 275, a, 34 sqq. (Zell., i bid, 571 tion of analogy. (Vide supra, p.
sq.). On the same principle in 276 sqq.)
Eth. Nie. he. ait. Aristotle remarks ''MetaphA. 9, 991, a, 2, vii.
in criticising the 'Idea of the 13,1039, a, cf. vii. 6, 2, 1031, b, 28.
Good,' that the upholders of the Aristotle expresses this objection
doctrine of Ideas themselves say here by sayingthat the doctrine of
that there is no Idea of that Ideas leads to the rplros ii/Spawos.
which stands in the relation of Cf. Zell., Plat. Stud. p. 257, and
Before and After; but this is Ph. d. Gr.pt. i. p. 623, 5. He
actually the case with the Good, finds the parallel of
'
the rp'ros
for it is found in all the cate- &vBpanros (which, however, is
gories: e.g., a substantial good equally true of the ideas themis
the Divinity and Reason, a selves, cf. Soph. El,, c. 22, 178, b,
qualitative good is Virtue, a 36) in the change of the uniquantitive
good is Measure, a versal into an individual of the
relative good is the Useful, &c. same name.
Thus, these different Goods stand