g.
'going round the earth' or 'night-hidden' (for from their view it
follows that if it stands still or is visible, it will no longer be
the sun; but it is strange if this is so; for 'the sun' means a
certain substance); but also by the mention of attributes which can
belong to another subject; e.g. if another thing with the stated
attributes comes into existence, clearly it will be a sun; the formula
therefore is general. But the sun was supposed to be an individual,
like Cleon or Socrates. After all, why does not one of the
supporters of the Ideas produce a definition of an Idea? It would
become clear, if they tried, that what has now been said is true.
16
Evidently even of the things that are thought to be substances,
most are only potencies,-both the parts of animals (for none of them
exists separately; and when they are separated, then too they exist,
all of them, merely as matter) and earth and fire and air; for none of
them is a unity, but as it were a mere heap, till they are worked up
and some unity is made out of them. One might most readily suppose the
parts of living things and the parts of the soul nearly related to
them to turn out to be both, i.e. existent in complete reality as well
as in potency, because they have sources of movement in something in
their joints; for which reason some animals live when divided. Yet all
the parts must exist only potentially, when they are one and
continuous by nature,-not by force or by growing into one, for such
a phenomenon is an abnormality.
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