Kitap 3
8
But if they are not genera, neither will they be first principles, assuming that it is the genera that are first principles. And further, the intermediate terms, taken together with the differentiae, will be genera, down to the individuals; but in point of fact, although some are thought to be such, others are not. Moreover the differentiae are more truly principles than are the genera; and if they also are principles, we get an almost infinite number of principles, especially if one makes the ultimate genus a principle.
9
Moreover, if Unity is really more of the nature of a principle, and the indivisible is a unity, and every thing indivisible is such either in quantity or in kind, and the indivisible in kind is prior to the divisible, and the genera are divisible into species, then it is rather the lowest predicate that will be a unity (for man is not the genussc. but the species. of individual men).
10
Further, in the case of things which admit of priority and posteriority, that which is predicated of the things cannot exist apart from them. E.g., if 2 is the first number, there will be no Number apart from the species of number; and similarly there will be no Figure apart from the species of figures. But if the genera do not exist apart from the species in these cases, they will scarcely do so in others; because it is assumed that genera are most likely to exist in these cases.
11
In individuals, however, there is no priority and posteriority. Further, where there is a question of better or worse, the better is always prior; so there will be no genus in these cases either.
11
From these considerations it seems that it is the terms predicated of individuals, rather than the genera, that are the first principles. But again on the other hand it is not easy to say in what sense we are to understand these to be principles;
