Book 11
12
It is a perplexing fact also that whereas every science treats of universals and types, substance is not a universal thing, but rather a particular and separable thing; so that if there is a science that deals with first principles, how can we suppose that substance is a first principle?Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.1.14, Aristot. Met. 3.6.7-9.
13
Again, is there anything besides the concrete whole (I mean the matter and the form in combination) or not?This section belongs to the problem discussed in 1-5 above. If not, all things in the nature of matter are perishable; but if there is something, it must be the form or shape. It is hard to determine in what cases this is possible and in what it is not; for in some cases, e.g. that of a house, the form clearly does not exist in separation.
13
Again, are the first principles formally or numerically the same?Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.1.12, Aristot. Met. 3.4.8-10. If they are numerically one, all things will be the same.
1
Since the science of the philosopher is concerned with Being qua Being universally,This chapter corresponds to Aristot. Met. 4.1, 2, with which it should be compared. and not with some part of it, and since the term Being has several meanings and is not used only in one sense, if it is merely equivocal and has no common significance it cannot fall under one science (for there is no one class in things of this kind); but if it has a common significance it must fall under one science.
2
Now it would seem that it is used in the sense which we have described, like medical and healthy, for we use each of these terms in several senses; and each is used in this way because it has a reference, one to the science of medicine, and another to health, and another to something else; but each refers always to the same concept. A diagnosis and a scalpel are both called medical, because the one proceeds from medical science and the other is useful to it.
