But if the principles are universal, either the substances
composed of them are also universal, or non-substance will be prior to
substance; for the universal is not a substance, but the element or
principle is universal, and the element or principle is prior to the
things of which it is the principle or element.
All these difficulties follow naturally, when they make the
Ideas out of elements and at the same time claim that apart from the
substances which have the same form there are Ideas, a single separate
entity. But if, e.g. in the case of the elements of speech, the a's
and the b's may quite well be many and there need be no a-itself and
b-itself besides the many, there may be, so far as this goes, an
infinite number of similar syllables. The statement that an
knowledge is universal, so that the principles of things must also
be universal and not separate substances, presents indeed, of all
the points we have mentioned, the greatest difficulty, but yet the
statement is in a sense true, although in a sense it is not. For
knowledge, like the verb 'to know', means two things, of which one
is potential and one actual. The potency, being, as matter,
universal and indefinite, deals with the universal and indefinite; but
the actuality, being definite, deals with a definite object, being a
'this', it deals with a 'this'. But per accidens sight sees
universal colour, because this individual colour which it sees is
colour; and this individual a which the grammarian investigates is
an a.
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