Since the term 'unity' is used like the term 'being', and the
substance of that which is one is one, and things whose substance is
numerically one are numerically one, evidently neither unity nor being
can be the substance of things, just as being an element or a
principle cannot be the substance, but we ask what, then, the
principle is, that we may reduce the thing to something more knowable.
Now of these concepts 'being' and 'unity' are more substantial than
'principle' or 'element' or 'cause', but not even the former are
substance, since in general nothing that is common is substance; for
substance does not belong to anything but to itself and to that
which has it, of which it is the substance. Further, that which is one
cannot be in many places at the same time, but that which is common is
present in many places at the same time; so that clearly no
universal exists apart from its individuals.
But those who say the Forms exist, in one respect are right, in
giving the Forms separate existence, if they are substances; but in
another respect they are not right, because they say the one over many
is a Form. The reason for their doing this is that they cannot declare
what are the substances of this sort, the imperishable substances
which exist apart from the individual and sensible substances. They
make them, then, the same in kind as the perishable things (for this
kind of substance we know)--'man-himself' and 'horse-itself', adding
to the sensible things the word 'itself'.
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