Kitap 13
24
Thus regarded as matter the acute angle and element and unit are prior; but with respect to form and substance in the sense of formula, the right angle, and the whole composed of matter and form, is prior. For the concrete whole is nearer to the form or subject of the definition, although in generation it is posterior.Cf. Aristot. Met. 7.10, 11.
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In what sense, then, is the One a first principle? Because, they say, it is indivisible.
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But the universal and the part or element are also indivisible. Yes, but they are prior in a different sense; the one in formula and the other in time. In which sense, then, is the One a first principle? for, as we have just said, both the right angle seems to be prior to the acute angle, and the latter prior to the former; and each of them is one.
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Accordingly the Platonists make the One a first principle in both senses. But this is impossible; for in one sense it is the One qua form or essence, and in the other the One qua part or matter, that is primary. There is a sense in which both number and unit are one; they are so in truth potentially—that is, if a number is not an aggregate but a unity consisting of units distinct from those of other numbers, as the Platonists hold—
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but each of the twoAristotle takes the number two as an example, but the principle is of course universal. In a sense both number and unit are one; but if the number exists as an actual unity, the unit can only exist potentially. units is not one in complete reality. The cause of the error which befell the Platonists was that they were pursuing their inquiry from two points of view—that of mathematics and that of general definition—at the same time. Hence as a result of the former they conceived of the One or first principle as a point, for the unit is a point without position. (Thus they too, just like certain others,
