Book 8
8
It is because of this difficulty that some thinkersThe Platonists. speak of participation, and raise the question of what is the cause of participation, and what participation means; and others speak of communion; e.g., LycophronA sophist, disciple of Gorgias. says that knowledge is a communion of the soul with knowing; and others call life a combination or connection of soul with body.
9
The same argument, however, applies in every case; for being healthy will be the communion or connection or combination of soul and health; and being a bronze triangle a combination of bronze and triangle; and being white a combination of surface and whiteness. The reason for this is that people look for a unifying formula, and a difference, between potentiality and actuality.
10
But, as we have said,Cf. sects. 4, 5. the proximate matter and the shape are one and the same; the one existing potentially, and the other actually. Therefore to ask the cause of their unity is like asking the cause of unity in general; for each individual thing is one, and the potential and the actual are in a sense one. Thus there is no cause other than whatever initiates the development from potentiality to actuality. And such things as have no matter are all, without qualification, essential unities.
