Kitap 7
12
With regard, then, to definitions by division, let this suffice as a preliminary statement of their nature.
1
Since the subject of our inquiry is substance, let us return to it. Just as the substrate and the essence and the combination of these are called substance, so too is the universal. With two of these we have already dealt, i.e. with the essenceChs. 4-5.,10-12. and the substrateCh. 3.; of the latter we have said that it underlies in two senses—either being an individual thing (as the animal underlies its attributes), or as matter underlies the actuality.
2
The universal also is thought by someThe Platonists. to be in the truest sense a cause and a principle. Let us therefore proceed to discuss this question too; for it seems impossible that any universal term can be substance.
2
First, the substance of an individual is the substance which is peculiar to it and belongs to nothing else; whereas the universal is common; for by universal we mean that which by nature appertains to several things.
3
Of what particular, then, will the universal be the substance? Either of all or of none. But it cannot be the substance of all; while, if it is to be the substance of one, the rest also will be that one; because things whose substance is one have also one essence and are themselves one.
3
Again, substance means that which is not predicated of a subject, whereas the universal is always predicated of some subject.
3
But perhaps although the universal cannot be substance in the sense that essence is, it can be present in the essence, as animal can be present in man and horse.
