)
Therefore the difficulty which used to be raised by the school
of Antisthenes and other such uneducated people has a certain
timeliness. They said that the 'what' cannot be defined (for the
definition so called is a 'long rigmarole') but of what sort a
thing, e.g. silver, is, they thought it possible actually to
explain, not saying what it is, but that it is like tin. Therefore one
kind of substance can be defined and formulated, i.e. the composite
kind, whether it be perceptible or intelligible; but the primary parts
of which this consists cannot be defined, since a definitory formula
predicates something of something, and one part of the definition must
play the part of matter and the other that of form.
It is also obvious that, if substances are in a sense numbers,
they are so in this sense and not, as some say, as numbers of units.
For a definition is a sort of number; for (1) it is divisible, and
into indivisible parts (for definitory formulae are not infinite), and
number also is of this nature. And (2) as, when one of the parts of
which a number consists has been taken from or added to the number, it
is no longer the same number, but a different one, even if it is the
very smallest part that has been taken away or added, so the
definition and the essence will no longer remain when anything has
been taken away or added. And (3) the number must be something in
virtue of which it is one, and this these thinkers cannot state,
what makes it one, if it is one (for either it is not one but a sort
of heap, or if it is, we ought to say what it is that makes one out of
many); and the definition is one, but similarly they cannot say what
makes it one.
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