But if things have come to be or will
be, evidently not all things will be relative to opinion.-Again, if
a thing is one, it is in relation to one thing or to a definite number
of things; and if the same thing is both half and equal, it is not
to the double that the equal is correlative. If, then, in relation
to that which thinks, man and that which is thought are the same,
man will not be that which thinks, but only that which is thought. And
if each thing is to be relative to that which thinks, that which
thinks will be relative to an infinity of specifically different
things.
Let this, then, suffice to show (1) that the most indisputable
of all beliefs is that contradictory statements are not at the same
time true, and (2) what consequences follow from the assertion that
they are, and (3) why people do assert this. Now since it is
impossible that contradictories should be at the same time true of the
same thing, obviously contraries also cannot belong at the same time
to the same thing. For of contraries, one is a privation no less
than it is a contrary-and a privation of the essential nature; and
privation is the denial of a predicate to a determinate genus. If,
then, it is impossible to affirm and deny truly at the same time, it
is also impossible that contraries should belong to a subject at the
same time, unless both belong to it in particular relations, or one in
a particular relation and one without qualification.
7
But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between
contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny
any one predicate.
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