those which have an
intermediate, e.g. unjust and just-in all such cases one must maintain
that the privation is not of the whole definition, but of the infima
species. if the just man is 'by virtue of some permanent disposition
obedient to the laws', the unjust man will not in every case have
the whole definition denied of him, but may be merely 'in some respect
deficient in obedience to the laws', and in this respect the privation
will attach to him; and similarly in all other cases.
As the mathematician investigates abstractions (for before
beginning his investigation he strips off all the sensible
qualities, e.g. weight and lightness, hardness and its contrary, and
also heat and cold and the other sensible contrarieties, and leaves
only the quantitative and continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in
two, sometimes in three dimensions, and the attributes of these qua
quantitative and continuous, and does not consider them in any other
respect, and examines the relative positions of some and the
attributes of these, and the commensurabilities and
incommensurabilities of others, and the ratios of others; but yet we
posit one and the same science of all these things--geometry)--the
same is true with regard to being. For the attributes of this in so
far as it is being, and the contrarieties in it qua being, it is the
business of no other science than philosophy to investigate; for to
physics one would assign the study of things not qua being, but rather
qua sharing in movement; while dialectic and sophistic deal with the
attributes of things that are, but not of things qua being, and not
with being itself in so far as it is being; therefore it remains
that it is the philosopher who studies the things we have named, in so
far as they are being.
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