For as there are many propositions about
things merely considered as in motion, apart from what each such thing
is and from their accidents, and as it is not therefore necessary that
there should be either a mobile separate from sensibles, or a distinct
mobile entity in the sensibles, so too in the case of mobiles there
will be propositions and sciences, which treat them however not qua
mobile but only qua bodies, or again only qua planes, or only qua
lines, or qua divisibles, or qua indivisibles having position, or only
qua indivisibles. Thus since it is true to say without qualification
that not only things which are separable but also things which are
inseparable exist (for instance, that mobiles exist), it is true
also to say without qualification that the objects of mathematics
exist, and with the character ascribed to them by mathematicians.
And as it is true to say of the other sciences too, without
qualification, that they deal with such and such a subject-not with
what is accidental to it (e.g. not with the pale, if the healthy thing
is pale, and the science has the healthy as its subject), but with
that which is the subject of each science-with the healthy if it
treats its object qua healthy, with man if qua man:-so too is it
with geometry; if its subjects happen to be sensible, though it does
not treat them qua sensible, the mathematical sciences will not for
that reason be sciences of sensibles-nor, on the other hand, of
other things separate from sensibles. Many properties attach to things
in virtue of their own nature as possessed of each such character;
e.
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