But it does
not matter at all in which of the two ways one likes to describe the
facts; this is evident, that definition and essence in the primary and
simple sense belong to substances. Still they belong to other things
as well, only not in the primary sense. For if we suppose this it does
not follow that there is a definition of every word which means the
same as any formula; it must mean the same as a particular kind of
formula; and this condition is satisfied if it is a formula of
something which is one, not by continuity like the Iliad or the things
that are one by being bound together, but in one of the main senses of
'one', which answer to the senses of 'is'; now 'that which is' in
one sense denotes a 'this', in another a quantity, in another a
quality. And so there can be a formula or definition even of white
man, but not in the sense in which there is a definition either of
white or of a substance.
5
It is a difficult question, if one denies that a formula with an
added determinant is a definition, whether any of the terms that are
not simple but coupled will be definable. For we must explain them
by adding a determinant. E.g. there is the nose, and concavity, and
snubness, which is compounded out of the two by the presence of the
one in the other, and it is not by accident that the nose has the
attribute either of concavity or of snubness, but in virtue of its
nature; nor do they attach to it as whiteness does to Callias, or to
man (because Callias, who happens to be a man, is white), but as
'male' attaches to animal and 'equal' to quantity, and as all
so-called 'attributes propter se' attach to their subjects.
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