Book 5
14
However, these classes of cause are in all six in number, each used in two senses. Causes are (1.) particular, (2.) generic, (3.) accidental, (4.) generically accidental; and these may be either stated singly or (5, 6) in combinationThe cause of a statue may be said to be (1) a sculptor, (2) an artist, (3) Polyclitus, (4) a man, (5) the sculptor Polyclitus (combination of (1) and (3)), (6) an artistic man (combination of (2) and (4)).; and further they are all either actual or potential.
15
And there is this difference between them, that actual and particular causes coexist or do not coexist with their effects (e.g. this man giving medical treatment with this man recovering his health, and this builder with this building in course of erection); but potential causes do not always do so; for the house and the builder do not perish together.
1
Element means (a) the primary immanent thing, formally indivisible into another form, of which something is composed. E.g., the elements of a sound are the parts of which that sound is composed and into which it is ultimately divisible, and which are not further divisible into other sounds formally different from themselves. If an element be divided, the parts are formally the same as the whole: e.g., a part of water is water; but it is not so with the syllable.
2
(b) Those who speak of the elements of bodies similarly mean the parts into which bodies are ultimately divisible, and which are not further divisible into other parts different in form. And whether they speak of one such element or of more than one, this is what they mean.
3
(c) The term is applied with a very similar meaning to the elements of geometrical figures, and generally to the elements of demonstrations; for the primary demonstrations which are contained in a number of other demonstrations are called elements of demonstrations.Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.3.1. Such are the primary syllogisms consisting of three terms and with one middle term.
