Book 4
19
Similarly therefore, even if the same thing is ten thousand times man and not-man, one should not include in one’s answer to the question whether it is man that it is at the same time also not-man, unless one is also bound to include in one’s answer all the other accidental things that the subject is or is not. And if one does this, he is not arguing properly.
19
In general those who talk like this do away with substance and essence,
20
for they are compelled to assert that all things are accidents, and that there is no such thing as being essentially man or animal. For if there is to be such a thing as being essentially man, this will not be being not-man nor not-being man (and yet these are negations of it); for it was intended to have one meaning, i.e. the substance of something.
21
But to denote a substance means that the essence is that and nothing else; and if for it being essentially man is the same as either being essentially not-man or essentially not-being man, the essence will be something else.
22
Thus they are compelled to say that nothing can have such a definition as this, but that all things are accidental; for this is the distinction between substance and accident: white is an accident of man, because although he is white, he is not white in essence.
23
And since the accidental always implies a predication about some subject, if all statements are accidental, there will be nothing primary about which they are made; so the predication must proceed to infinity. But this is impossible, for not even more than two accidents can be combined in predication. An accident cannot be an accident of an accident unless both are accidents of the same thing.
