Ἆρα τὸ ὂν καὶ ἡ οὐσία ἕτερον. καὶ τὸ μὲν ὂν ἀπηρημωμένον τῶν ἄλλων, ἡ δὲ οὐσία τὸ ὂν μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων, κινήσεως, στάσεως, ταὐτοῦ, ἑτέρου, καὶ στοιχεῖα ταῦτα ἐκείνης; τὸ οὖν ὅλον οὐσία, ἕκαστον δὲ ἐκείνων τὸ μὲν ὄν, τὸ δὲ κίνησις, τὸ δὲ ἄλλο τι. κίνησις μὲν οὖν κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς ὄν· οὐσία δὴ ἄρα κατὰ συμβεβηκός· ἢ συμπληρωτικὸν οὐσίας; ἢ καὶ αὐτὴ οὐσία καὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ πάντα οὐσία. πῶς οὖν οὐ καὶ ἐνταῦθα; ἢ ἐκεῖ, ὅτι ἓν πάντα, ἐνθάδε δὲ διαληφθέντων τῶν εἰδώλων τὸ μὲν ἄλλο, τὸ δὲ ἄλλο· ὥσπερ ἐν μὲν τῷ σπέρματι ὁμοῦ πάντα καὶ ἕκαστον πάντα καὶ οὐ χεὶρ χωρὶς καὶ χωρὶς κεφαλή, ἐνθάδε δὲ χωρίζεται ἀλλήλων· εἴδωλα γὰρ καὶ οὐκ ἀληθῆ.
Are being and substance different? Is being stripped of the others, while substance is being together with the others—motion, rest, sameness, otherness—so that these are its elements? Then the whole is substance, and of its components one is being, another motion, another something else. Motion, then, is being incidentally; is it, then, substance incidentally? Or does it complete substance? Or rather, motion too is substance, and everything there is substance. Why not here as well, then? Or rather: there, because all things are one; but here, since the images have been separated, one is one thing and another another. In the seed, likewise, all things are together and each is all, with no hand apart and head apart, while here they are separated from each other; for they are images and not true.
τὰς οὖν ποιότητας ἐκεῖ φήσομεν οὐσίας διαφορὰς περὶ οὐσίαν οὔσας ἢ περὶ ὄν, διαφορὰς δὲ ποιούσας ἑτέρας οὐσίας πρὸς ἀλλήλας καὶ ὅλως οὐσίας; ἢ οὐκ ἄτοπον, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν τῇδε ποιοτήτων, ὧν αἱ μὲν διαφοραὶ οὐσιῶν, ὡς τὸ δίπουν καὶ τὸ τετράπουν, αἱ δὲ οὐ διαφοραὶ οὖσαι αὐτὸ τοῦτο μόνον ποιότητες λέγονται. καίτοι τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ διαφορὰ γίνεται συμπληροῦσα καὶ οὐ διαφορὰ ἐν ἄλλῳ οὐ συμπληροῦσα τὴν οὐσίαν, συμβεβηκὸς δέ· οἷον τὸ λευκὸν ἐν μὲν κύκνῳ ἢ ψιμμυθίῳ συμπληροῦν, ἐν δὲ σοὶ συμβεβηκός. ἢ τὸ λευκὸν τὸ μὲν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ συμπληροῦν καὶ οὐ ποιότης, τὸ δὲ ἐν τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ ποιόν.
Shall we say, then, that the qualities there are differences of substance, belonging to substance or being, differences that make substances different from one another—and that they are substances in general? Or rather, that is not absurd; the trouble concerns the qualities here. Some of them are differences of substances, like two-footed and four-footed; others, not being differences, are called qualities and only that. And yet the same thing becomes a difference that completes the substance and, in something else, not a difference, not completing the substance but an accident. White, for example, completes the swan or white lead, but in you it is an accident. Or rather, the white in the rational principle completes and is not a quality, while the white on the surface is a quality.
ἢ διαιρετέον τὸ ποιόν, ὡς τὸ μὲν οὐσιῶδες ἰδιότης τις οὖσα τῆς οὐσίας, τὸ δὲ μόνον ποιόν, καθ’ ὃ ποιὰ οὐσία, τοῦ ποιοῦ οὐ διαλλαγὴν εἰς τὴν οὐσίαν ποιοῦντος οὐδ’ ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας, ἀλλ’ οὔσης ἤδη καὶ πεπληρωμένης διάθεσίν τινα ἔξωθεν ποιοῦντος καὶ μετὰ τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ πράγματος προσθήκην, εἴτε περὶ ψυχὴν εἴτε περὶ σῶμα γίνοιτο.
Or perhaps we should divide quality: one sort is substantial, being a particular character of the substance, while another is only quality, the kind by which a substance is qualified. Quality of this sort does not produce a change into substance or out of substance; in a substance that already exists and is complete, it produces a sort of disposition from outside, an addition to the thing after its substance, whether it arises in a soul or in a body.
ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ τὸ ὁρώμενον λευκὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ ψιμμυθίου συμπληρωτικὸν εἴη αὐτοῦ; ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ κύκνου οὐ συμπληρωτικόν· γένοιτο γὰρ ἂν καὶ οὐ λευκός· ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τοῦ ψιμμυθίου. καὶ τοῦ πυρὸς δὲ ἡ θερμότης. ἀλλ’ εἴ τις λέγοι τὴν πυρότητα τὴν οὐσίαν εἶναι καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ψιμμυθίου τὸ ἀνάλογον; ἀλλ’ ὅμως τοῦ ὁρωμένου πυρὸς πυρότης ἢ θερμότης συμπληροῦσα καὶ ἡ λευκότης ἐπὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου. αἱ αὐταὶ τοίνυν συμπληρώσουσι καὶ οὐ ποιότητες, καὶ οὐ συμπληρώσουσι καὶ ποιότητες· καὶ ἄτοπον ἐν μὲν οἷς συμπληροῦσι λέγειν ἄλλο εἶναι, ἐν δὲ οἷς μὴ ἄλλο, τῆς αὐτῆς φύσεως οὔσης. ἀλλ’ ἄρα τοὺς μὲν λόγους τοὺς ποιήσαντας αὐτὰ οὐσιώδεις ὅλους, τὰ δὲ ἀποτελέσματα ἔχειν ἤδη τὰ ἐκεῖ τὶ [τὰ δ’] ἐνταῦθα ποιά, οὐ τί.
But what if the white we see on white lead completes it? On the swan it does not complete it, for a swan could come to be not white; but on white lead it does. So does heat in fire. But what if someone says that fieriness is the substance, and the analogue in white lead? All the same, fieriness or heat completes the visible fire, and whiteness the other thing. So the same things will complete and not be qualities, and will not complete and be qualities. And it is absurd to say they are something different where they complete and not different where they don’t, the nature being the same. But perhaps the rational principles that produced them are wholly substantial, while their products already have, as their “what,” the things there, [whereas] here they are qualities, not a “what.”
ὅθεν καὶ ἁμαρτάνειν ἡμᾶς ἀεὶ περὶ τὸ τὶ ἀπολισθαίνοντας ἐν ταῖς ζητήσεσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς τὸ ποιὸν καταφερομένους. οὐ γὰρ εἶναι τὸ πῦρ ὃ λέγομεν εἰς τὸ ποιὸν ἀφορῶντες, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν εἶναι οὐσίαν, ἃ δὲ νῦν βλέπομεν, εἰς ἃ καὶ ἀφορῶντες λέγομεν, ἀπάγειν ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ τὶ καὶ ὁρίζεσθαι τὸ ποιόν· καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν εὐλόγως, οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν οὐσίαν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ αὐτῆς πάθη. ὅθεν κἀκεῖνο, πῶς ἐξ οὐκ οὐσιῶν οὐσία. ἐλέγετο μὲν οὖν, ὅτι οὐ δεῖ τὸ αὐτὸ τὸ γινόμενον εἶναι τοῖς ἐξ ὧν· νῦν δὲ λέγειν δεῖ, ὅτι οὐδὲ τὸ γενόμενον οὐσία. ἀλλὰ πῶς ἐκεῖ ἣν ἐλέγομεν οὐσίαν ἐξ οὐκ οὐσίας λέγομεν;
That is why we always go wrong about the “what”: in our inquiries into it we slip away from it and are carried down into quality. For fire is not what we name when we look at its quality. Fire is substance, while the things we now see, and look at when we speak, lead us away from the “what” and define the quality. With sensible things this is reasonable, for none of them is substance; they are affections of substance. Hence that other question too: how does substance come from what are not substances? It was said, then, that what comes to be need not be the same as the things it comes from. But now we must say that what comes to be is not substance either. Yet how do we say that what we called substance there comes from what is not substance?
τὴν γὰρ οὐσίαν φήσομεν ἐκεῖ κυριώτερον καὶ ἀμιγέστερον ἔχουσαν τὸ ὂν εἶναι οὐσίαν ὡς ἐν διαφοραῖς [τοῦ] ὄντος, μᾶλλον δὲ μετὰ προσθήκης ἐνεργειῶν λεγομένην οὐσίαν, τελείωσιν μὲν δοκοῦσαν εἶναι ἐκείνου, τάχα δ’ ἐνδεεστέραν τῇ προσθήκῃ καὶ τῷ οὐχ ἁπλῷ, ἀλλ’ ἤδη ἀφισταμένην τούτου.
For we shall say that the substance there, which has being more properly and with less admixture, is substance as being in differences [of] being—or rather, it is called substance with the addition of activities. It seems to be a completion of being; but perhaps it is more deficient through the addition and through not being simple, already departing from being.
ἀλλὰ περὶ τῆς ποιότητος σκεπτέον τί ὅλως· τάχα γὰρ γνωσθὲν ὅ τι ἐστὶ μᾶλλον παύσει τὰς ἀπορίας. πρῶτον οὖν ἐκεῖνο ζητητέον, εἰ τὸ αὐτὸ θετέον ὁτὲ μὲν ποιὸν μόνον, ὁτὲ δὲ συμπληροῦν οὐσίαν, οὐ δυσχεράναντας ποιὸν [οὐ] συμπληρωτικὸν οὐσίας εἶναι, ἀλλὰ ποιᾶς μᾶλλον οὐσίας. δεῖ τοίνυν ἐπὶ τῆς ποιᾶς οὐσίας τὴν οὐσίαν πρὸ τοῦ ποιὰν εἶναι καὶ τὸ τί ἐστι. τί οὖν ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρὸς πρὸ τῆς ποιᾶς οὐσίας ἡ οὐσία; ἆρα τὸ σῶμα; τὸ σῶμα τοίνυν οὐσία ἔσται, τὸ δὲ πῦρ σῶμα θερμὸν καὶ οὐκ οὐσία τὸ ὅλον, ἀλλ’ οὕτω τὸ θερμὸν ἐν αὐτῷ, ὡς καὶ ἐν σοὶ τὸ σιμόν. ἀφαιρεθείσης τοίνυν θερμότητος καὶ τοῦ λαμπροῦ καὶ κούφου, ἃ δὴ δοκεῖ ποιὰ εἶναι, καὶ ἀντιτυπίας τὸ τριχῆ διαστατὸν καταλείπεται καὶ ἡ ὕλη οὐσία.
But we must examine what quality in general is; perhaps once we know what it is, our difficulties will come to an end. First, then, we must ask whether the same thing should be posited as sometimes only a quality and sometimes completing substance—without balking at a quality’s [not] completing substance, though it completes rather a qualified substance. In a qualified substance, then, the substance, the “what it is,” must come before its being qualified. What, then, in the case of fire, is the substance before the qualified substance? Is it body? Then body will be the substance, and fire hot body; the whole will not be substance, and the hot will be in it as snubness is in you. So when heat is taken away, and brightness and lightness, which do seem to be qualities, and resistance too, what is left is the three-dimensionally extended, and matter is the substance.
ἀλλ’ οὐ δοκεῖ· τὸ γὰρ εἶδος μᾶλλον οὐσία. ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶδος ποιότης.
But that does not seem right; the form is more substance. But the form is a quality.
ἢ οὐ ποιότης, ἀλλὰ λόγος τὸ εἶδος. τὰ οὖν ἐκ τοῦ λόγου καὶ τοῦ ὑποκειμένου τί ἐστιν; οὐ γὰρ τὸ ὁρώμενον καὶ τὸ καῖον· τοῦτο δὲ ποιόν. εἰ μή τις λέγοι τὸ καίειν ἐνέργειαν ἐκ τοῦ λόγου· καὶ τὸ θερμαίνειν καὶ τὸ λευκαίνειν τοίνυν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ποιήσεις· ὥστε τὴν ποιότητα οὐχ ἕξομεν ὅπου καταλείψομεν. ἢ ταύτας μὲν οὐ λεκτέον ποιότητας, ὅσαι λέγονται συμπληροῦν οὐσίας, εἴπερ ἐνέργειαι αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων καὶ τῶν δυνάμεων τῶν οὐσιωδῶν ἰοῦσαι, ἃ δέ ἐστιν ἔξωθεν πάσης οὐσίας οὐ πῂ μὲν ποιότητες, ἄλλοις δὲ οὐ ποιότητες φανταζόμεναι, τὸ δὲ περιττὸν μετὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ἔχουσαι, οἷον καὶ ἀρεταὶ καὶ κακίαι καὶ αἴσχη καὶ κάλλη καὶ ὑγίειαι καὶ οὕτως ἐσχηματίσθαι.
Or rather, the form is not a quality but a rational principle. Then what are the things made of rational principle and substrate? Not what is seen and burns, for that is a quality—unless someone says that burning is an activity coming from the rational principle. Then heating, whitening and the rest are productions too, so that we shall have nowhere left to put quality. Or rather, those that are said to complete substances should not be called qualities, since they are their activities, proceeding from the rational principles and the substantial powers. Qualities are those things which are outside all substance, which do not appear as qualities in one place and not qualities in another, but carry what is surplus after substance: virtues and vices, for example, uglinesses and beauties, states of health, and having a certain shape.
καὶ τρίγωνον μὲν καὶ τετράγωνον καθ’ αὑτὸ οὐ ποιόν, τὸ δὲ τετριγωνίσθαι ᾗ μεμόρφωται ποιὸν λεκτέον, καὶ οὐ τὴν τριγωνότητα, ἀλλὰ τὴν μόρφωσιν· καὶ τὰς τέχνας δὲ καὶ τὰς ἐπιτηδειότητας· ὥστε εἶναι τὴν ποιότητα διάθεσίν τινα ἐπὶ ταῖς οὐσίαις ἤδη οὔσαις εἴτε ἐπακτὴν εἴτε ἐξ ἀρχῆς συνοῦσαν, ἣ εἰ μὴ συνῆν, οὐδὲν ἔλαττον εἶχεν [ἂν] ἡ οὐσία. ταύτην δὲ καὶ εὐκίνητον καὶ δυσκίνητον εἶναι· ὡς διττὸν εἶναι εἶδος, τὸ μὲν εὐκίνητον, τὸ δὲ ἔμμονον αὐτῆς.
Triangle and square, in themselves, are not qualities; but having been made triangular, in so far as the thing has been shaped, should be called a quality—not triangularity, but the shaping. So too with arts and aptitudes. Quality, then, is a sort of disposition in substances that already exist, whether acquired or present from the beginning; if it were not present, the substance [would] have had nothing less. This disposition is either easily changed or hard to change, so that there are two kinds of it, one easily changed, the other persistent.
τὸ οὖν λευκὸν τὸ ἐπὶ σοὶ θετέον οὐ ποιότητα, ἀλλ’ ἐνέργειαν δηλονότι ἐκ δυνάμεως τῆς τοῦ λευκαίνειν, κἀκεῖ πάσας τὰς λεγομένας ποιότητας ἐνεργείας τὸ ποιὸν λαβούσας παρὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας δόξης τῷ ἰδιώτητα εἶναι ἑκάστην οἷον διοριζούσας τὰς οὐσίας πρὸς ἀλλήλας καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὰς ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα ἐχούσας. τί οὖν διοίσει ποιότης ἡ ἐκεῖ; ἐνέργειαι γὰρ καὶ αὗται. ἢ ὅτι μὴ οἷόν τί ἐστι δηλοῦσιν οὐδὲ ἐναλλαγὴν τῶν ὑποκειμένων οὐδὲ χαρακτῆρα, ἀλλ’ ὅσον μόνον τὴν λεγομένην ποιότητα ἐκεῖ ἐνέργειαν οὖσαν· ὥστε τὸ μέν, ὅταν ἰδιότητα οὐσίας ἔχῃ, δῆλον αὐτόθεν ὡς οὐ ποιόν, ὅταν δὲ χωρίσῃ ὁ λόγος τὸ ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς ἴδιον οὐκ ἐκεῖθεν ἀφελών, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον λαβὼν καὶ γεννήσας ἄλλο, ἐγέννησε ποιὸν οἷον μέρος οὐσίας λαβὼν τὸ ἐπιπολῆς φανὲν αὐτῷ.
The white on you, then, should evidently be posited not as a quality but as an activity coming from the power of whitening. And there, all the so-called qualities should be posited as activities, which get their qualitative character from our opinion, because each is a particular character, as if marking substances off from one another, and has a stamp of its own. How, then, will quality there differ? For these too are activities. Or rather, they do not show what sort a thing is, nor an alteration of substrates, nor a stamp; they show only that what is called quality there is activity. So when the thing has the particular character of substance, it is clear from the outset that it is not a quality. But when reason separates off the particular feature in such things—not taking it away from there, but rather grasping it and generating something else—it has generated a quality, grasping as a sort of part of substance what appeared to it on the surface.
εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, οὐδὲν κωλύει καὶ τὴν θερμότητα τῷ σύμφυτον εἶναι τῷ πυρὶ εἶδός τι εἶναι τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ ἐνέργειαν καὶ οὐ ποιότητα αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὖ ἄλλως ποιότητα μόνην ἐν ἄλλῳ ληφθεῖσαν οὐκέτι μορφὴν οὐσίας οὖσαν, ἀλλὰ ἴχνος μόνον καὶ σκιὰν καὶ εἰκόνα ἀπολιποῦσαν αὑτῆς τὴν οὐσίαν, ἧς ἡ ἐνέργεια, ποιότητα εἶναι. ὅσα οὖν συμβέβηκε καὶ μὴ ἐνέργειαι καὶ εἴδη οὐσιῶν μορφάς τινας παρεχόμενα, ποιὰ ταῦτα· οἷον καὶ αἱ ἕξεις καὶ διαθέσεις ἄλλαι τῶν ὑποκειμένων λεκτέαι ποιότητες, τὰ δὲ ἀρχέτυπα αὐτῶν, ἐν οἷς πρώτως ἐστίν, ἐνεργείας ἐκείνων. καὶ οὐ γίνεται ταὐτὸ ποιότης καὶ οὐ ποιότης, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀπηρημωμένον οὐσίας ποιόν, τὸ δὲ σὺν ταύτῃ ἢ εἶδος ἢ ἐνέργεια· οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστι ταὐτὸν ἐν αὑτῷ μένον καὶ ἐν ἄλλῳ ἐκπεσὸν τοῦ εἶδος καὶ ἐνέργεια εἶναι.
If so, nothing prevents heat too, because it is innate in fire, from being a form of fire and an activity, and not a quality of it. And again, taken differently, in something else, it is only a quality, no longer a shape of substance but only a trace and shadow and image, having left behind its own substance, of which it is the activity. Whatever, then, is incidental, and not activities and forms of substances providing certain shapes, these are qualities. States, for instance, and the other dispositions of substrates should be called qualities, while their archetypes, in which they primarily exist, are activities of those substances. And the same thing does not become both quality and not quality. What is stripped of substance is a quality; what is with it is form or activity. For nothing is the same when it remains in itself and when it has fallen, in something else, from being form and activity.
ὃ μέντοι μηδέποτε εἶδος ἄλλου, ἀλλὰ συμβεβηκὸς ἀεί, καθαρῶς ποιότης καὶ μόνον τοῦτο.
What is never the form of something else, but always an accident, is purely quality and only that.