Metaphysics

​There is a difficulty adjoining to these, which is both the most difficult of all and the most necessary to examine, with which our discussion is now concerned. For if there is nothing apart from individuals, and individuals are infinite, how is it possible to acquire science of what is infinite? For it is in so far as there is some one and the same thing, and in so far as some universal is present, that we know all things. —But indeed, if this is necessary, and there must be something apart from individuals, it would be necessary for the genera to exist apart from individuals, either the ultimate or the primary ones; but that this is impossible, we have just now argued as a difficulty. —Further, even if it is granted in the highest degree that there is something apart from the concrete whole when something is predicated of the matter, if there is, must there be something apart from all of them, or apart from some but not apart from others, or apart from none? If, then, there is nothing apart from individuals, nothing would be intelligible, but all things would be sensible, and there would be science of nothing, unless one says that sensation is science. Further, there would be nothing eternal or immovable (for all sensible things perish and are in motion); but indeed, if there is nothing eternal, neither is it possible for there to be generation. For there must be something that is generated and something from which it is generated, and the ultimate of these must be ungenerated, if indeed the series stops and it is impossible for something to be generated from non-being. Further, if there is generation and motion, there must also be a limit (for no motion is infinite, but of every motion there is an end, and it is impossible for that to be generated which cannot have been generated; and that which has been generated must exist when it first has been generated). Further, if indeed matter exists because of its being ungenerated, much more still is it reasonable for the substance to exist, which that matter at some time becomes; for if neither this nor that is to exist, nothing at all will exist; and if this is impossible, there must be something apart from the concrete whole, namely the shape and the form. —But if, on the other hand, someone posits this, there is a difficulty as to in what cases he will posit this and in what cases not. For that it is not possible in all cases is clear; for we would not posit that there is some house apart from the particular houses. In addition to these, will the substance of all things be one, for instance of all men? But that is absurd; for all things of which the substance is one are one. But are they many and different? But this too is unreasonable. And at the same time, how does matter become each of these, and how is the concrete whole both of these? —Further, concerning the principles one might also raise this difficulty. For if they are one in form, nothing will be one in number, not even the One itself and Being; and how will knowing be possible, if there is not to be some one thing over all things? —But indeed, if each of the principles is one in number, and not as in the case of sensible things, different for different things (for example, while this syllable is the same in form as another, its principles are also the same in form; for these also exist as different in number), —if it is not so, but the principles of existing things are one in number, there will be nothing else apart from the elements; for to say “one in number” or “individual” makes no difference; for this is how we speak of the individual, as “one in number”, and of the universal as “over these”. Just as, then, if the elements of speech were limited in number, it would be necessary that all the letters should be as many as the elements, since there are not two or more of the same.