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

:
METAPHYSICS 329
essential actuality to tbe side of the individual, it
follows that the Form, or the ethos, which Plato had
made identical with the universal, becomes detached
from the universal in Aristotle and takes on an
altered
meaning. To him Form is essence determinate and
developed into full actuality :
undetermined universality,
which is the possibility of Being, not yet determined
this way or that, is considered as Matber in opposition
to Form. The relation of Form and Matter accord- — y-i
ingly furnishes the second main object
of Metaphysics.
Form, in fine, is essentially related to Matter, and
Matter to Form ; and this relation consists in the fact
that Matter becomes definite through Form. This process
is Movement. All movement, however, presupposes a
first cause of movement, and in this way movement and
the first motor constitute the third pair of concepts
with which Metaphysics is concerned.
In the following
pages Aristotle's theory will be set forth under these
Jhree heads. £ ^ ;
^ f.^UH^ T"
(1) The Individual and the Universal.
Plato had taken as the essential
element in things
'
the universal as it is thought in conception,' and had
ascribed
Being, in its fullest and original sense, to that
only. It was by a limitation of this Being, by a combination
of Being with Not-Being, that individual
entities could arise.
These, therefore, had, outside and
above them, as something other than themselves, the
universal essences, which were the Ideas. Aristotle
denies this, for he finds the fundamental error of the Ideal
Theory in this separation of the conceptual essence from
P*§0
'/T
330 ARISTOTLE
the thing itself. A 1
universal is that which belongs to
many things in common, 2 or, more accurately, that
which belongs to them by reason of their nature, and
therefore, necessarily and always. 3 It follows that all
universal concepts denote only certain of the properties
of things ; or, in other words, are predicates and not
subjects. Even when a number of these properties are
combined to make the conception of a genus, we get
thereby something which belongs to all the things
pertaining to the genus in question, but by no means
a universal subsisting beside them as distinct. For
Plato's %v Trapa to. voXXa is substituted Aristotle's
%v tcara, ttoWwv.* If, then, the universal is not anything
subsisting by itself, it cannot be Substance. It
is true that the name of Substance 6 is used in various
1
Seep.316,n.l,s«y;ra. Mislaph.
xiii. 9, 1086, b, 2 : rovro 8' [the
doctrine of Ideas] . . . fic'ivr/cre
/jt,kv 2w/cpanjs 5m tovs dpifffzobs, oil
fifyv eX^/Htre ye twv «a0' etcaffTov '
KoX tovto 6p9ais lv6t\dev oil xapiffas
. . avev fiev yap rod tca96\ov ovic
effTtv eirlffT'fjfiTjy \afietv, to Sk X a P~
l£eiv oXtiov tw Gvn$aiv6vT03v hva-
X^piv irepl ras ideas eGTiv . Cf. C.
4, 1073, b, 30 sq.
2
Metaph. vii. 13, 1038, b, 11 ;
to 8e Ka96\ov icoivSv • tovto yap
Aeyerai Ka96\ov o irXeioo'lv inrdpxelv
iritpiiKtv ; iii. 4, 909, b, 34 : ovtu
yap Xt'yoy.ev to Ka9eicaffTOv to
api8fA$ %v, Ka66\ov Se to iirl tovtwv.
De Interpr. 7, 17, a, 89 ; Part.
An. i. 4, 644, a 27, and supra.
3
Anal. Post. i. 4, 73, b, 26
Ka86\ov 5e Keyw o av _
Kara iravT6s
Te iirdpxy «al Ko8' avrb Kal $ ouni,
(pavepbv apa oti oaa aalhjAov ^|
aviyKris vrdpxei tois Ttp6.yji.aaai
;
c. 31, 87, b, 32: rb yap ae\ /col
•wavTaxov Ka96\ov tpafieu elvai.
Metaph. v. 9, 1017, b, 35 : ret yap
Ka96\ov Kaff aiira inrdpxei. See also
BONITZ, Ind. Arist. 356, b, 4 sqq.
Kampe, Erkeimtnissth. d. Aritt.
160 sq.
'
Anal. Post.i. 11 init. : eiSr)
p-ey otv elyat '/) ev ti Trapa to.
TvoWa oiiK avdynri, el an65ei^LS
ecrrai " elvai p.ivTOi ev KaTa iroAAwf
a\y)9es elireiv avayKT}. JJe All. iii.
8 (see p. 195, n. J, snpra).
Aristotle's oio-'a is of course
5
here and elsewhere translated
by substance.' ' It is strange
to find this translation attacked
(by Strtjmpell, Gesch.d.theor.
Phil. b. d. Gr. 213 sq. ; cf.
Zbllee, Ph. d. Gr. pt. i. 555,
1) on the ground that Aristotle
nowhere understands by -oi