For 'circle' is used ambiguously,
meaning both the circle, unqualified, and the individual circle,
because there is no name peculiar to the individuals.
The truth has indeed now been stated, but still let us state it
yet more clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the
formula, into which the formula is divided, are prior to it, either
all or some of them. The formula of the right angle, however, does not
include the formula of the acute, but the formula of the acute
includes that of the right angle; for he who defines the acute uses
the right angle; for the acute is 'less than a right angle'. The
circle and the semicircle also are in a like relation; for the
semicircle is defined by the circle; and so is the finger by the whole
body, for a finger is 'such and such a part of a man'. Therefore the
parts which are of the nature of matter, and into which as its
matter a thing is divided, are posterior; but those which are of the
nature of parts of the formula, and of the substance according to
its formula, are prior, either all or some of them. And since the soul
of animals (for this is the substance of a living being) is their
substance according to the formula, i.e. the form and the essence of a
body of a certain kind (at least we shall define each part, if we
define it well, not without reference to its function, and this cannot
belong to it without perception), so that the parts of soul are prior,
either all or some of them, to the concrete 'animal', and so too
with each individual animal; and the body and parts are posterior to
this, the essential substance, and it is not the substance but the
concrete thing that is divided into these parts as its matter:-this
being so, to the concrete thing these are in a sense prior, but in a
sense they are not.
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