Or has 'definition', like 'what a thing is', several meanings?
'What a thing is' in one sense means substance and the 'this', in
another one or other of the predicates, quantity, quality, and the
like. For as 'is' belongs to all things, not however in the same
sense, but to one sort of thing primarily and to others in a secondary
way, so too 'what a thing is' belongs in the simple sense to
substance, but in a limited sense to the other categories. For even of
a quality we might ask what it is, so that quality also is a 'what a
thing is',-not in the simple sense, however, but just as, in the
case of that which is not, some say, emphasizing the linguistic
form, that that is which is not is-not is simply, but is non-existent;
so too with quality.
We must no doubt inquire how we should express ourselves on each
point, but certainly not more than how the facts actually stand. And
so now also, since it is evident what language we use, essence will
belong, just as 'what a thing is' does, primarily and in the simple
sense to substance, and in a secondary way to the other categories
also,-not essence in the simple sense, but the essence of a quality or
of a quantity. For it must be either by an equivocation that we say
these are, or by adding to and taking from the meaning of 'are' (in
the way in which that which is not known may be said to be known),-the
truth being that we use the word neither ambiguously nor in the same
sense, but just as we apply the word 'medical' by virtue of a
reference to one and the same thing, not meaning one and the same
thing, nor yet speaking ambiguously; for a patient and an operation
and an instrument are called medical neither by an ambiguity nor
with a single meaning, but with reference to a common end.
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