Kitap 6
5
This is clear too from such considerations as the following: of things which are in other senses there is generation and destruction, but of things which are accidentally there is not.i.e., the process of becoming or change takes place in the subject—the man , who is accidentally cultured, becomes grammatical, and when the process is complete the cultured is accidentally grammatical; but it does not become so. Nevertheless we must state further, so far as it is possible, with regard to the accidental, what its nature is and through what cause it exists. At the same time it will doubtless also appear why there is no science of it.
6
Since, then, there are among existing things some which are invariable and of necessity (not necessity in the sense of compulsion,Cf. Aristot. Met. 5.5.2. but that by which we mean that it cannot be otherwise Aristot. Met. 5.5.3 ), and some which are not necessarily so, nor always, but usually: this is the principle and this the cause of the accidental. For whatever is neither always nor usually so, we call an accident.
7
E.g., if in the dog-daysThe period from July 3 to August 11, during which the dog-star Sirius rises and sets with the sun. we have storm and cold, we call it an accident; but not if we have stifling and intense heat, because the latter always or usually comes at this time, but not the former. It is accidental for a man to be white (since this is neither always nor usually so), but it is not accidental for him to be an animal.
8
It is by accident that a builder restores to health, because it is not a builder but a doctor who naturally does this; but the builder happened accidentally to be a doctor. A confectioner, aiming at producing enjoyment, may produce something health-giving; but not in virtue of his confectioner’s art. Hence, we say, it was accidental; and he produces it in a sense, but not in an unqualified sense.
