Metaphysics

But those who make the unequal as some one thing, and the indefinite dyad consisting of the great and the small, speak too far from what is plausible and possible; for these are affections and accidents rather than subjects for numbers and magnitudes, much and few being of number, and great and small of magnitude, just as even and odd, smooth and rough, and straight and curved. And in addition to this error, the great and the small and all such things must be relatives; and the relative is least of all some nature or substance, and is posterior to quality and quantity; and the relative is an affection of quantity, as was said, but not matter, if indeed there is something else that is other both for the general relative as a whole and for its parts and species. For there is nothing either great or small, or much or few, or in general relative, which, without being something else, is much or few or great or small or relative. And it is a sign that the relative is least of all some substance and an entity that of it alone there is no generation or destruction or motion, as there is increase and decrease in quantity, alteration in quality, locomotion in respect of place, and simple generation and destruction in respect of substance — but not in respect of the relative. For without being moved, it will be at one time greater and at another smaller or equal, when the other has been moved in quantity. And it is necessary that the matter of each thing be that which is potentially of such a nature, and so also the matter of substance; but the relative is neither potentially nor actually a substance. It is therefore absurd, or rather impossible, to make that which is not a substance an element of substance and prior to it; for all the other categories are posterior. Moreover, elements are not predicated of those things of which they are elements; but much and few are predicated both separately and together of number, and long and short of a line, and a plane is both wide and narrow. And if indeed there is some multiplicity of which one part is always the “few”, such as the dyad (for if it were “much”, the “one” would be “few”), and another part would be “much” simply, such as the decad is “much”, if there is nothing more than this, or ten thousand. How then will number be thus composed of the few and the much? For either both ought to be predicated or neither; but now only one of the two is predicated.