But that there is a
brazen sphere, this we make. For we make it out of brass and the
sphere; we bring the form into this particular matter, and the
result is a brazen sphere. But if the essence of sphere in general
is to be produced, something must be produced out of something. For
the product will always have to be divisible, and one part must be
this and another that; I mean the one must be matter and the other
form. If, then, a sphere is 'the figure whose circumference is at
all points equidistant from the centre', part of this will be the
medium in which the thing made will be, and part will be in that
medium, and the whole will be the thing produced, which corresponds to
the brazen sphere. It is obvious, then, from what has been said,
that that which is spoken of as form or substance is not produced, but
the concrete thing which gets its name from this is produced, and that
in everything which is generated matter is present, and one part of
the thing is matter and the other form.
Is there, then, a sphere apart from the individual spheres or a
house apart from the bricks? Rather we may say that no 'this' would
ever have been coming to be, if this had been so, but that the
'form' means the 'such', and is not a 'this'-a definite thing; but the
artist makes, or the father begets, a 'such' out of a 'this'; and when
it has been begotten, it is a 'this such'. And the whole 'this',
Callias or Socrates, is analogous to 'this brazen sphere', but man and
animal to 'brazen sphere' in general.
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