E.g. if the body is potentially
healthy, and disease is contrary to health, is it potentially both
healthy and diseased? And is water potentially wine and vinegar? We
answer that it is the matter of one in virtue of its positive state
and its form, and of the other in virtue of the privation of its
positive state and the corruption of it contrary to its nature. It
is also hard to say why wine is not said to be the matter of vinegar
nor potentially vinegar (though vinegar is produced from it), and
why a living man is not said to be potentially dead. In fact they
are not, but the corruptions in question are accidental, and it is the
matter of the animal that is itself in virtue of its corruption the
potency and matter of a corpse, and it is water that is the matter
of vinegar. For the corpse comes from the animal, and vinegar from
wine, as night from day. And all the things which change thus into one
another must go back to their matter; e.g. if from a corpse is
produced an animal, the corpse first goes back to its matter, and only
then becomes an animal; and vinegar first goes back to water, and only
then becomes wine.
6
To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect
both to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their
unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which
the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is
something beside the parts, there is a cause; for even in bodies
contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity
or some other such quality.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225