Kitap 8
8
E.g., what is an eclipse? A privation of light; and if we add caused by the earth’s intervention, this is the definition which includes the 〈efficient〉 cause. In the case of sleep it is not clear what it is that is proximately affected. Is it the animal? Yes; but in respect of what, and of what proximately? The heart, or some other part. Again, by what is it affected? Again, what is the affection which affects that part, and not the whole animal? A particular kind of immobility? Yes; but in virtue of what affection of the proximate subject is it this?
1
Since some things both are and are not, without being liable to generation and destructionCf. Aristot. Met. 6.3.1, Aristot. Met. 7.8.3.—e.g. points,Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.5.8, 9. if they exist at all; and in general the forms and shapes of things (because white does not come to be, but the wood becomes white, since everything which comes into being comes from something and becomes something)—not all the contrariesi.e., we must distinguish contraries in the sense of contrary qualities from contraries in the sense of things characterized by contrary qualities. can be generated from each other. White is not generated from black in the same way as a white man is generated from a black man; nor does everything contain matter, but only such things as admit of generation and transformation into each other.
2
And such things as, without undergoing a process of change, both are and are not, have no matter.
2
There is a difficulty in the question how the matter of the individual is related to the contraries. E.g., if the body is potentially healthy, and the contrary of health is disease, is the body potentially both healthy and diseased? And is water potentially wine and vinegar? Probably in the one case it is the matter in respect of the positive state and form, and in the other case in respect of privation and degeneration which is contrary to its proper nature.
