Physics

It is said both ways that the subject remains, and that this comes from that, and this becomes that. For a musical person is said to become that both from a non-musical person and as a non-musical person. Therefore, the same is true for the composite; for a musical man is said to come from a non-musical man, and a non-musical man is said to become a musical man. Since "becoming" is spoken of in many ways, and some things are not said to become, but rather that a specific "this" comes to be, while only substances are said to come to be simply, it is clear regarding other things that there must be something underlying the thing that comes to be. For quantity, quality, relation, time, and place come to be with something underlying them, because only substance is not predicated of any other subject, whereas all other things are predicated of substance. That substances and all other things that are "simply" are also generated from some underlying subject would become clear to one who investigates it. For there is always something that underlies [the process], from which that which comes to be proceeds, just as plants and animals come from seed. Things that come to be simply are generated in some cases by change of shape, like a statue; in some cases by addition, like growing things; in some cases by subtraction, like Hermes A stone statue of Hermes carved from a block of marble. from stone; in some cases by composition, like a house; and in some cases by alteration, like things that change in their material. It is clear that all things that come to be in this way are generated from underlying subjects. So it is clear from what has been said that everything which comes to be is always composite, and there is something that comes to be, and there is something that becomes this, and this is twofold: for it is either the subject or the opposite. By "opposite" I mean the non-musical, and by "subject" the man; by the opposite I mean ugliness, lack of form, or disorder, and by the subject, the bronze, the stone, or the gold. It is therefore evident that if there are causes and principles of natural things, from which they are first composed or have come to be—not coincidentally, but each according to its own substance—that everything is generated from both the subject and the form. For the musical man is composed, in a way, of man and musical; you would break down the definitions into their terms. It is therefore clear that the things which come to be would arise from these. The subject is one in number, but two in form. For the man, the gold, and in general the unformed matter are a "this" An individual thing or specific instance. more so, and that which comes to be does not come from it coincidentally; but the sterēsis privation/lack and the opposition are incidental. The form is one, such as the arrangement, musicality, or any other of the things predicated in this way. Therefore, there is a sense in which the principles should be called two, and a sense in which they should be called three; there is a sense in which they are the opposites, as if one were to speak of the musical and the non-musical, or the hot and the cold, or the attuned and the unattuned, and a sense in which they are not, for it is impossible for opposites to be affected by one another. This is resolved because the subject is something else, for the subject is not an opposite. Thus, the principles are not more than the opposites in a certain way, being two in number, nor are they strictly two, because their being is different, but three; for the being of a man and the being of the non-musical are different, as are the unformed and the bronze. How many and in what way the principles of natural things relating to generation are has been said, and it is clear that something must underlie the opposites, and that the opposites are two. In another way, it is not necessary; for one of the opposites will suffice to cause the change by its absence and presence. The underlying nature is knowable by analogy. For as bronze is to a statue, or wood to a bed, or as matter and the unformed is to any other thing having form before it receives that form, so this underlies substance, the "this," and the being. One principle, then, is this; it is not one in the sense of being a "this," but one as the form or the account, and furthermore the opposite to this, which is privation. How these are two and how they are more has been said above. First, it was said that only the opposites are principles, but later that something else must also underlie them, making them three. From what has been said now, it is clear what the difference between the opposites is, how the principles relate to one another, and what the subject is. Whether the form or the subject is the substance is not yet clear. But that the principles are three, how they are three, and what their mode is, is clear. How many and what the principles are should be considered from these [arguments].