And why is this individual thing,
or this body having this form, a man? Therefore what we seek is the
cause, i.e. the form, by reason of which the matter is some definite
thing; and this is the substance of the thing. Evidently, then, in the
case of simple terms no inquiry nor teaching is possible; our attitude
towards such things is other than that of inquiry.
Since that which is compounded out of something so that the
whole is one, not like a heap but like a syllable-now the syllable
is not its elements, ba is not the same as b and a, nor is flesh
fire and earth (for when these are separated the wholes, i.e. the
flesh and the syllable, no longer exist, but the elements of the
syllable exist, and so do fire and earth); the syllable, then, is
something-not only its elements (the vowel and the consonant) but also
something else, and the flesh is not only fire and earth or the hot
and the cold, but also something else:-if, then, that something must
itself be either an element or composed of elements, (1) if it is an
element the same argument will again apply; for flesh will consist
of this and fire and earth and something still further, so that the
process will go on to infinity. But (2) if it is a compound, clearly
it will be a compound not of one but of more than one (or else that
one will be the thing itself), so that again in this case we can use
the same argument as in the case of flesh or of the syllable. But it
would seem that this 'other' is something, and not an element, and
that it is the cause which makes this thing flesh and that a syllable.
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