For
the arguments of the sophists deal, we may say, above all with the
accidental; e.g. the question whether 'musical' and 'lettered' are
different or the same, and whether 'musical Coriscus' and 'Coriscus'
are the same, and whether 'everything which is, but is not eternal,
has come to be', with the paradoxical conclusion that if one who was
musical has come to be lettered, he must also have been lettered and
have come to be musical, and all the other arguments of this sort; the
accidental is obviously akin to non-being. And this is clear also from
arguments such as the following: things which are in another sense
come into being and pass out of being by a process, but things which
are accidentally do not. But still we must, as far as we can, say
further, regarding the accidental, what its nature is and from what
cause it proceeds; for it will perhaps at the same time become clear
why there is no science of it.
Since, among things which are, some are always in the same state
and are of necessity (not necessity in the sense of compulsion but
that which we assert of things because they cannot be otherwise),
and some are not of necessity nor always, but for the most part,
this is the principle and this the cause of the existence of the
accidental; for that which is neither always nor for the most part, we
call accidental. For instance, if in the dog-days there is wintry
and cold weather, we say this is an accident, but not if there is
sultry heat, because the latter is always or for the most part so, but
not the former.
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