Kitap 1
29
Also with regard to motion, if the Great and Small is to constitute motion, obviously the Forms will be moved; if not, whence did it come? On this view the whole study of physics is abolished. And what is supposed to be easy, to prove that everything is One, does not follow; because from their expositionThe word ἔκθεσις has various technical meanings. The process referred to here apparently consisted in taking, e.g., particular men, and reducing them with reference to their common nature to a single unit or universal, man; then taking man, horse, dog, etc. and treating them in the same way, until a unit is reached which embraces everything (Alexander). it does not follow, even if you grant them all their assumptions that everything is One, but only that there is an absolute One—
30
and not even this, unless you grant that the universal is a class; which is impossible in some cases.Probably those of relative or negative terms. Cf. Aristot. Met. 1.3. Nor is there any explanation of the lines, planes and solids which come after the NumbersSee note on Aristot. Met. 1.23.: neither as to how they exist or can exist, nor as to what their importance is. They cannot be Forms (since they are not numbers) or Intermediates (which are the objects of mathematics) or perishables; clearly they form yet another fourth class.
31
In general, to investigate the elements of existing things without distinguishing the various senses in which things are said to exist is a hopeless task; especially when one inquires along these lines into the nature of the elements of which things are composed. For (a) we cannot surely conceive of the elements of activity or passivity or straightness; this is possible, if at all, only in the case of substances. Hence to look for, or to suppose that one has found, the elements of everything that exists, is a mistake.
