But in the case of so-called self-subsistent things, is a thing
necessarily the same as its essence? E.g. if there are some substances
which have no other substances nor entities prior to them-substances
such as some assert the Ideas to be?-If the essence of good is to be
different from good-itself, and the essence of animal from
animal-itself, and the essence of being from being-itself, there will,
firstly, be other substances and entities and Ideas besides those
which are asserted, and, secondly, these others will be prior
substances, if essence is substance. And if the posterior substances
and the prior are severed from each other, (a) there will be no
knowledge of the former, and (b) the latter will have no being. (By
'severed' I mean, if the good-itself has not the essence of good,
and the latter has not the property of being good.) For (a) there is
knowledge of each thing only when we know its essence. And (b) the
case is the same for other things as for the good; so that if the
essence of good is not good, neither is the essence of reality real,
nor the essence of unity one. And all essences alike exist or none
of them does; so that if the essence of reality is not real, neither
is any of the others. Again, that to which the essence of good does
not belong is not good.-The good, then, must be one with the essence
of good, and the beautiful with the essence of beauty, and so with all
things which do not depend on something else but are self-subsistent
and primary.
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